Back when Bean started solid food, I posted my plan to do the homemade baby food thing. After struggling with two of the pickiest eaters ever born, I hoped that making Bean’s food would help avoid a repeat of the epic toddler food wars. My reasoning was simple: jarred baby food tastes like ass, and if I won’t eat it, why would I expect my kid to choke it down with a smile on her face? Not to mention that fresh food is probably better for her than crud that’s been hibernating on the store shelf for months on end.
Though it is extra work now and then, the homemade baby food plan is a success thus far. Bean will eat anything I put in front of her, and now that she is older, I mostly just feed her whatever we are eating (after a few pulses in the food processer). Last week she plowed through chicken and dumplings, King Ranch Mac and Cheese and fresh pineapple with Greek yogurt. She’s already consumed more fruits and vegetables in five months than her brothers did in their first five years. Maybe, just maybe, I won’t have as theatrical of a battle with her as I do with the rest of my brood.
In my never-ending quest to get less fat, I’m always trying to find the balance with my family and food. I don’t want to be the cliché mom who tries to force her diet onto her family, or drag everyone along on my “get healthier” bandwagon. For that matter, I’m not really into the “diet” concept either; I like to eat and my love of cheese, chocolate and fried anything will never be denied. However, I’ve slowly been tweaking our everyday food choices and preparations in order to find a happy medium between my desire for slightly better nutrition, and their inherent distrust of anything not nugget shaped. I steam or roast veggies, while having a lighter hand with the butter or oil. I stopped buying canned vegetables (with the exception of Le Sueur peas, lest the Heathens riot), and stick with fresh or frozen. Even if it makes me the meanest mom ever, I limit the Heathen’s treats and soda intake, because I want them to learn the concepts of portions and moderation. I’m not opposed to the treats, but they need to realize the difference between a “treat” and everything else they eat.
As for Bean, every time she tries a new food, only to plow through it a light speed, I breathe another sigh of relief. This homemade baby food experiment has been completely worth the effort, and the fact that I’m not blowing money on jar after jar of yucky crap makes my budget a little bit less sad. But then, I open my electric bill and my budget gets suicidal…but that’s another story.
Love to see the homemade baby food! I did it for my daughter, and my friends thought I was nuts. When, at 2 1/2, my daughter had to start attending daycare, she wouldn’t eat the food – because she had never had a hamburger, or a taco, or a corndog, or fish sticks…fortunately she loved red beans & rice, spaghetti and pizza.
She’s now 8, and while doesn’t eat as much variety as I would like her to, she is a lover of sauteed fresh baby spinach (with smoked gouda cheese, if you please), spinach on her pizza, sweet potatoes, roasted cauliflower and broccoli, grilled asparagus, avocado popsicles at the farmer’s market, and homemade berry/yogurt popsicles.
The biggest downside to all this? She has good taste, which means expensive taste! Getting her to taste the spinach was a fluke at age 3, but it stuck, And to this day it is till her favorite vegetable. She goes through a box of fresh spinach almost every week by herself, with a week off here and there. There are things she would eat as a toddler, that she will not touch anymore: lentil & rice soup; chicken, okra, & barley soup (not gumbo, no roux); those were my convenience foods. It is reassuring however, to know that she likes the taste of “green”. Can you imagine having to punish a child for eating only her broccoli, and not her mac and cheese? I’m hoping that these will be the comfort tastes of her adulthood.
Oh yeah, I have to share the bleu cheese with her, too, so, watch out!
Congratulations on giving home made baby food a try! I did the same 25 years ago and always felt my children were better for it (and my pocketbook certainly was)!
Nancy from LiveaSavoryLife