How to Prepare and Store Baby Food

MamaNatural.com 🔅 mamanatural.com/ We know our baby is ready for solid foods. We know the top first foods to start baby on. Now, we want to know how to prepare and store our baby food.

Begin with organics
We want to use organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible. Yes, they are pricey but they are worth the investment for your little baby. If you need to use conventional, be sure to avoid the dirty dozen (organic.org/articles/showarticle/article-214) and use a fruit and vegetable spray.

Simple mash
For some of our healthy baby first foods, all we need to do is peel and mash with a fork. No cooking required! This is true for our bananas, pears and avocados. Be sure to by these fruits ripe so it's easy for baby to digest. For younger babies, add water or breast milk to your mash to thin out consistency.

Steaming your food
For other healthy baby first foods like squashes and carrots, we'll need to steam these vegetables and then puree with blender. You can do this separately with a steam basket and immersion blender OR you can get a baby food maker that combines both of these functions like the Beaba (mamanatural.com/beaba-babycook-giveaway/). Use filtered water when you steam and save the leftover water, which is loaded with vitamins and minerals, to thin out vegetable puree OR use it in a sippy cup for baby to practice hand/eye coordination. Be sure to cook your veggies long enough so they are super soft and easy to digest for baby. We'll also want to let them veggies cool to room temperature before we feed baby.

Storing your food
Once we've made several baby food concoctions, we can keep them in our fridge for 1-3 days depending on the mixture. (Bananas and avocados don't last long!) Because of this short timeline, I think the best way to store baby food is to freeze it. Use ice cube trays, little plastic baggies, or my favorite, the Beaba multiportion freezer trays to store single servings of baby food. This makes preparing a serving for baby very easy. Just pop out single portion, heat up to room temperature, and serve. By freezing, we can make bulk quantities, saving time and energy, and yet ensuring that baby gets nutritious, homemade baby food every time.

Enjoy and experiment
Once you have the basics down, enjoy experimenting with different flavor combinations and you can even add some mild spices for baby. The more varied his/her diet, the better chances he/she'll embrace new flavors along the way. Our goal is to raise a toddler that enjoys his foods rather than turns his nose to anything new.

How about you?
What are the ways you cooked and stored your baby food? Any pointers that saved you time? Pregnant? Check out my baby registry checklist:
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Genevieve Howland, aka Mama Natural
Bestselling author of The Mama Natural Week-by-Week Guide to Pregnancy & Childbirth ➡️ amzn.to/2Pf6Pfe
Co-Founder of mamanatural.com

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