2.0 HOW to get started -- equipment.
Description
This article is from the Solid Food for Infants FAQ, by David M. Poduska poduska@cis.ohio-state.edu with numerous contributions by others.
2.0 HOW to get started -- equipment.
From: sck@epg.harris.com (Sharon C.Kelly)
I felt compelled to share my experiences feeding my children (now
15 yrs, 13 yrs, and -1 month).
Both my boys were breastfed until 1 year of age, but when it came time
to start solid food (my first son was interested at at 4-1/2 months),
I tried a jar of baby food. It was horrible, so I mashed up a banana
with plain yogurt, which he loved. Then I bought a Happy Food Baby
Food Grinder (for about $8, today's $$), a simple, easy-to-clean
manual one-serving grinder.
>From that time on, he (and the subsequent son) ate only food which I
prepared in that grinder. I traveled a lot at the time, taking the
baby with me, so I would just take the little grinder, and grind up
something good off my plate at a restaurant. He loved everything, ate
very well, and thrived. On a visit to Texas at 9 months, he ate and
loved ground-up hot tamales. He loved ground-up Chinese food, using
wonton soup broth to liquefy it a bit. At home, he ate what we ate; I
just ground it up for him. Some things are kind of dry when they're
ground up (hamburgers or soy burgers, even many vegetables). I would
just add some appropriate liquid, like yogurt, juice, water, soup
broth - whatever was convenient and would taste good with the ground
food.
Making the kids' food was almost effortless! It was fun to create
interesting and healthy combinations from the food on our plates. The
babies loved eating! Neither of them have ever eaten a bite of jarred
baby food, except that awful first taste. Both of them have grown up
healthy, strong, normal weight. Neither of them have ever had an
allergy (but then I don't either, although their father had a lot of
allergies and asthma), and have hardly even had any kind of cold or
childhood illness.
Morgan is now due to be born in 5 weeks! I plan to feed her the same
way -- it's so easy, cheap, and I imagine she'll like it as much as
her brothers did!
Sharon
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From: mrp@world.std.com (Marjorie R Peskin)
>Does anyone have a good recommendation for a good baby food grinder? I
>have used by food processor ( I have a small one and a large one.. ), the
>small one, and it doesn't grind the food up enough for my almost 8M old
>daughter.... I almost need something that "liquidify's" the stuff...
Any good Cuisinart will almost liquify the foods IF you add liquid
to the food. My gastroenterologist told me that the gerber first foods
are almost 90% water! Thats why they are so smooth. I found that
addidn the liquid that I cook the veggies in is often not
enough to really make a good mush, so I add liquids like broth,
juice, etc. Depends on what I am making.
I often make raviolis and mush them up in the Cuisinart with some jar
spaghetti sauce (I use the Classico 4 cheese, not too spicy and taste
great). I add a bit of water and it gets mushy. ANd now I am adding
less and less water and making the foods chunkier so that they will
get used to texture.
My neighbor uses the small cuisinart with great success, but you have
to make a new batch of food at every meal, rather than making a lot
and freezing it.
Marjorie
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From: nancy@chemistry.Stanford.EDU (Nancy Hansen)
Stock up on ice-cube trays. We have about 6 that are constantly
filled with various frozen vegetables and meats. Be sure to cover
them with cellophane (especially if you have automatic defrost in the
freezer, since the food will evaporate), and you've got cubes ready to
microwave for quick meals.
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From: poduska@cis.ohio-state.edu (David M. Poduska)
As an alternative to Nancy Hansen's ice tray suggestion, one can
transfer the food to freezer bags AFTER it has been frozen in an ice
tray. The freezer bags are more flexible than ice trays when you're
trying to fit them in a freezer with little space left, and you only
need 1 or 2 ice trays to freeze the food.
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