Any advice on an organic way to introduce veggies/food when my son is ready to move to solids?

8 comments

1. good2balive on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   Babies are often started on rice or oat cereal because it’s generally very easily digested and less likely to cause allergic reactions. The same goes for bananas. I made my own baby food for all three of my kids; for one thing it’s just plain cheaper. But all of mine preferred the taste of home cooked pureed foods over jar stuff. You can get a hand-crank food mill, very portable and easy to use and you can use a mini food processor for small amounts to feed right now. A large capacity food processor is good for making larger batches of stuff, which I would then freeze in small, 2 oz. rubbermaid containers, ready to defrost and feed later (made it easy for other caregivers too).

   I found most things very easy to puree, with the exception of peas, which I had a hard time keeping the skins out of. The hand mill did the best job of keeping the skins out of the puree, other wise, the skins didn’t puree finely enough for my taste. (Though when baby got older it didn’t matter anymore). Keep in mind that very few things will puree to the extra smooth consistency of store-bought baby food, but in reality babies beginning to get "real" food don’t necessarily need their foods completely smooth; they only need any kind of chunks or pieces to be small enough to go down easily. In other parts of the world, and before the invention of modern baby food, babies just ate mushed up versions of what the adults in their culture were eating.

   As for meat, I just started with chicken, cooked with plenty of moisture and long enough to be nice and soft and mushable. I moved on to turkey, though that is harder to keep moist while cooking (boiling worked well and steaming small pieces). Dark meat has more flavor and more iron and B vitamins, and is actually better for children.

   Go ahead and start with the rice cereal or oat cereal, but you don’t necessarily have to move to bananas after that, just keep in mind what’s easy to digest (I found this more important than worrying about allergens for my kids). The cereal just is a very easy way to introduce the new texture to baby and get them used to eating from a spoon.

   I hope this is helpful.

2. BABA BOOEY!! is preggers w/ #2 on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   it’s super easy to make your own food and i believe much healthier

   i try to buy organic if it’s not way too expensive but it usually is, however i made all my son’s food, organic or not

   this website has pretty much everything you could want to know about homemade baby food, recipes and all:

   http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

   edit: i made purees from about 5 months to about 6.5 moths or so and then once he could handle chunky purees i stopped pureeing ad gave him steamed veggies and cooked fruit chunks and more variety of food (pasta, fish, etc) and let him feed himself as much as he could. now he eats regular food and mostly feeds himself (except things such as soup and oatmeal that i still feed him)

3. charlotte e on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   My son too was solely breast fed and I weened him on homemade vegetable purees. At first you don’t really need recipes as the blander the better and then you add more as baby gets older. I started with plain broccolii , just cook and whizz up and serve. Thats it! Other favourites were sweet potato, parsnip, carrot etc. Then as he got older I would start mixing them a bit or adding herbs/baby rice etc. Its not too long untill he will be able to eat the same food as you, just pureed. Apart from the early stages of weening and introducing I didn’t really preapare special meals for my son. BTW avacoado and banana mixed together was his absolute favourite pudding…may sound a bit weird but its actually really delicious and so full of good things!

4. McMom on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   We neither did cereals and jar food, or pureed home cooked food – when our breastfed bub turned 6 months she started self feeding what we ate at meal times.

   I’m not an organic nut – but I buy about 50% of my vegetables at the local farmers market, and those are organic (ha, just mean I have to wash them more carefully.)

   I assume you and your partner have a quite healthy diet, if you are keen to get your son off to a healthy start – so there is no reason he can’t eat what you eat – the way you eat it (with texture, lumps and chunks.)

   Mashing/whizzing/mushing food for him is not necessary – he can have steamed/boiled vegetables in sticks and chunks big enough to grab and stuff into his own mouth.

   Check out ‘baby led weaning’ – http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/
   http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/blw/engels.html

5. mystic_eye_cda on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   The best way to start is not to puree the food at all.

   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6762795.stm
   Milk only

   From these observations and her own studies she developed her feeding programme, called Baby-Led Weaning.

   According to this programme, during the first six months babies should receive milk only.

   She said: "In 2002 the World Health Organisation backed research that found breast or formula milk provided all the nutrition a baby needs up to the age of six months.

   "That research said feeding a baby any other food during the first six months would dilute the nutritional value of the milk and might even be harmful to the baby’s health."

   These findings have been incorporated into government recommendations on baby feeding.

   http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/blw/engels.html#choke
   Ensuring good nutrition

   Babies who are allowed to feed themselves seem to accept a wide range of foods. This is probably because they have more than just the flavour of the food to focus on – they are experiencing texture, colour, size and shape as well. In addition, giving babies foods separately, or in a way which enables them to separate them for themselves, enables them to learn about a range of different flavours and textures. And allowing them to leave anything they appear not to like will encourage them to be prepared to try new things.

   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page/2/
   In a review of the research, Nancy Butte, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine, found that many strongly held assumptions — such as the need to offer foods in a particular order or to delay allergenic foods — have little scientific basis.

   Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it’s the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat — often one of the last foods American parents introduce — would be a better choice.

   Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

   "These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

   The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

   Food allergy fears get some of the blame for the bland approach. For decades doctors have said the best way to prevent allergies is to limit infants to bland foods, avoiding seasonings, citrus, nuts and certain seafood.

   But Butte’s review found no evidence that children without family histories of food allergies benefit from this. Others suspect avoiding certain foods or eating bland diets actually could make allergies more likely. Some exposure might be a good thing

6. leila on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   I never really did the baby food thing. I pureed my own green beans, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. and put into an ice cube tray until frozen and then cracked them into a large freezer zip loc. I would just pop one out and microwave it a little or let in thaw.
   when baby was 6-7 months I introduced cubed carrots and peas, I also did cubed sweet potato, cheerios
   later i did spinach and ricotta cheese (stored in an ice cube tray for easy access) cubed egg white, and raw cucumber and tomato and watermelon. I didn’t do too much fruit as babies won’t eat their veggies.

7. RB on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   I started my son on solid food at 6 months. The first food I gave him was organic rice cereal (Earth’s Best brand) mixed with breast milk, and he loved it. But if you don’t want to feed him rice cereal, you can start with homemade applesauce or pears, or something which is similarly smooth. It’s easy to make, but time-consuming.

   Try http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com

8. bummy87 on September 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm

   fully breast fed babys dont need to start on food until 6 months where they just have a little taste unless they are having 1 hourly feeds cause they are so hungry, they should have lost there gag reflex and be able hold there own head up when sitting. they should reach out and try to grab food when your eating and open there mouth when you bring a spoon to it. just introduce one kind of food at a time chuck it in the blender till its mush if its to think at some water, do what you want but dont add salt or sugar. My sister is a health freak and she went out the other days and pureid all kinds of food and stored them in my tiny freezer which was helpful but anyways you’ll figure it out good job with the feeding by the way keep up the good work and good luck :)

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