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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Laura won't let me eat the baby food

Laura has decided that I'm not good enough for baby food. Well, not really - she just didn't make enough for me *and* the baby. :(

Most people, myself especially have ZERO desire to eat baby food... but check this out!

Puree's of baked plum; baked peaches; steamed green beans; banana mash and of course the soft cereal with mommy's milk. OK I can pass on the cereal; mine has sugar added, but the rest of it is *SOOO* tasty.

I keep thinking of all the times I'd love to top a pork loin or ice-cream with the peach or plum puree, or have the green beans as a drizzle across an onion and asparagus side dish. Bananas are better mashed I think... i'm just usually too lazy to do it before eating them though.

As a foodie - I'm jealous of what my baby is eating!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I take issue with feeding my baby anything that I wouldn't want to eat myself.

I have to say, I was really impressed with how the baked peach came out. It's all smooth and peachy and it's really good. I think it's Mira's favorite.

The baked plum is not quite as sweet as I'd like, but is still really good. I think part of the reason that it's not so sweet is that the recipe had me puree it with the skins still on. But that made it this really pretty purple color... which I'm sure will stain. I'll just have to take her shirt off when I feed her that one.

Next on my list of baby foods to make are mango and carrot. The mango doesn't even need to be cooked, just drop it into the blender. And I'll steam the carrot. Supposedly steaming is best for carrots because it breaks the nitrates down into a more digestable form.

On a suggestion from my mom, I'm freezing all the baby foods in an ice tray. Then once they are frozen solid, I dump the cubes into a labelled ziplock bag. It's great because it is an easy way to store individual portions frozen without taking up much freezer space. When you're ready to feed the baby, you just pull out a cube or two and either let it thaw or put it in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Anyway, I promised Brian that I would make an extra large batch the next time I'm making peach puree so that he could have some. ;-)

Marcy said...

Leaving the skins on probably means she's getting more of the nutrients, too. And the stuff doesn't have to be that sweet. Babies's tastes are funny. Donovan loves the sweet YoBaby yogurt, but will gobble up plain yogurt just as eagerly.

I've read that you're not supposed to make your own carrot baby food b/c of the nitrates, but I've never bought that Gerber has that much power to control the nitrates in THEIR carrots so whatever. It's awesome that you're making such great food for her. =)

Unknown said...

The sources I've found say that carrot baby food is ok to make yourself as long as you steam the carrots and then dump out the cooking water (rather than use it to dilute the puree). Steaming for some reason is better for breaking down the nitrates and beta carotene than other cooking methods, and also many of the nitrates come out in the cooking water (which is why you shouldn't add it to the puree). I used apple juice to thin my puree. It tastes pretty good, but more apply than I'd anticipated. Carrots and other root vegetables actually have a lower nitrate content than leafy greens like spinach and broccoli, which is why they don't recommend introducing leafy vegetables until 8 months. (The AAP says carrots are ok after 3 months of age.)

With nitrates, you worry about "blue baby syndrome" or methemoglobinemia, which is basically when baby gets an overabundance of nitrates that their under-developed gut can't metabolize as quickly and then the nitrates get into the bloodstream and convert the hemoglobin to a form that does not carry oxygen, thus deoxygenating the blood. By 6 months of age, baby's gut is well developed enough that it can handle a reasonable amount of nitrates. This is why most cases of "blue baby syndrome" are in younger babies whose formula has been prepared from well water that is high in nitrates.