Mixing Foods

A friend and I recently met to walk through beautiful Olbrich Botatnical Gardens with our children. Her baby is about 4 months younger than Sprout and they're just starting to think about solid food. Since my kids are pretty decent eaters, she asked me what I do.

One of the things I told her about was blending the less palatable foods - like beans and broccoli - with more accepted foods like apples and sweet potatoes. It really helped Sprout have a positive feeling about broccoli which many children don't care for. My friend told me in her online research she's encountered many people saying that you should never mix foods so children get the chance to taste and appreciate foods individually.

Well, first of all, I have an issue with absolutes - always, never, etc. I can definitely see the benefit in getting a child to know that this is what broccoli tastes like on its own, why not make the first experience a good one? I think about my dad, a great guy, but kind of a picky eater. Seriously, if I had to deal with cooking for some of his food issues I'd have gone crazy long ago. (Then again, it's been long established that I don't have anywhere near the saintly levels of patience my mom has.) I think part of Dad's problem is that vegetables weren't always prepared in the most flavorful way and that he had to eat it, as is, no matter what.

I've decided that I would rather have my children eat food paired up with other foods if that's what it will take to get them to eat. I don't mean frying the heck out of it or smothering it in cheese sauce (although those are good, too), but what's wrong with combining one healthy food with another healthy food? Then when you present the broccoli or green beans or whatever to the child on it's own you can say "remember, you like it when it's with applesauce or pears" or whatever else you've mixed with it.

Ironically, Sprout would rather eat small bits of steamed broccoli on their own than when the pureed broccoli is mixed in with other food. She will eat it when it's mixed, but it's not the voracious "I can't get enough!" that she has when it's little trees. Whether it's because she's eating big girl food like her sister or she really likes the taste/texture/whatever more in whole broccoli, I don't care. She's eating a healthy vegetable prepared in a healthy way and she knows what it is she's eating.

The Veggies Begin

May 25 - after talking to the nurse, who resumed with helpful advice, it would appear that I was starving my poor child! She was getting up every 3 hours at night because 1 tablespoon of cereal wasn't enough to sustain her. Now that she's getting up to 3 tablespoons of cereal a day things are going much better. Whew!

The nurse also said if cereal was successful for 2 weeks, we could introduce the orange veggies. The reason orange veggies are suggested is that they are sweeter and babies tend to respond better to sweet things. (Is breast milk sweet because babies like it better or do babies like sweet things because breast milk is sweet? Will we ever know?!) Veggies are recommended before fruits because there is a concern that babies will get hooked on the sweet taste of fruit and be less likely to eat the vegetables as they are introduced.

I went to the grocery store to pick up baby food. I knew I wanted to make my own for Sprout, as I did with Bug. This is for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's cheaper. Secondly, I'm a control freak and making my own food means I know what exactly is in there. Thirdly, it gives me control over texture and I have a belief (right or wrong) that we give babies a lack of texture that does not benefit them as they grow up. Making my own baby food also appeals to my twisted pioneering/Suzie Homemaker persona. (I guess reading Laura Ingalls Wilder like it was the Bible probably had some influence, huh?) But with Bug, I started all of her food with a commercial jar and then started to make my own. After comparing the price of a 4 ounce jar of Earth's Best baby food - about $1/jar - and the price of a pound of organic sweet potatoes - $1.79/lb - there was no contest. Even being lazy and buying the pre-washed and peeled bag of organic baby carrots was way cheaper than buying the jar of carrots.

I'm not going to lie to you, it is faster and easier to just open a jar and feed that to the baby. However, making your own baby food isn't as time consuming as one might think. I use my microwave (or stove if I'm really feeling old school), food processor (but a blender would work, too), and freezer. I used to cram the food into old baby food jars, but that was messy and time consuming, so now I just freeze a batch in a couple of ice cube trays and it works well.

Basically I steam the food until it's mushy, then put the food and the cooking water into the food processor until it's pureed. Usually I have to add some water, so I start by adding 1/4 cup at a time until it's the consistancy I want. Then I scrape it into the ice cube trays, pop it into the freezer, and pull out the cubes to put into plastic bags. Each cube is roughly 1 ounce.

We started with the carrots and they were pretty popular. Sweet potatoes were even more loved. I don't know if it actually makes a difference or not, but I always tell the baby what food they're eating so it's not a total suprise when they get something different, although they won't know what I'm talking about at first. I also get really excited about a new food or a less than favorite food and that seems to be able to at least get the first few bites in. I also found that mixing the food with a bit of breast milk also seemed to help for the first few meals. Since I pump so my mom can watch the girls for me a couple of days a week, I had some readily available.

The good news - even oatmeal is more edible with sweet potatoes mixed in! :)