Family and Parenting: Information For Families

Since most families are tightening their belt’s on the food budget this involves everyone in the home. Even pet’s are feeling the crunch. Just because the budget for miscellaneous items is being chopped it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice on the healthy balance of the foods.

If you have an infant in the family that is in the baby food stage this can be torture on the wallet. Those little bitty jars can add up in cost. Babies can pack away almost 600 jars of puree baby food before moving onto solid foods. With each jar ranging from seventy five cents to one dollar and twenty five cents you clearly see the expense involved.

The best part is that you can very easily create homemade baby food at home in less than thirty minutes a week. With this being said the cost of making your own puree food for the entire stage of your babies eating habits will cost less than one hundred dollars.

Just a few simple steps and you are on your way to healthy, possibly organic, baby food.

Purchase the fruits, vegetables, or whatever ingredient your baby enjoys. Fresh fruits and vegetables or frozen are the best. If they are fresh ingredients you will need to wash, peel, and dice. The healthiest way to wash fresh produce is to mix one tablespoon of baking soda in luke-warm water and scour the produce in the mixture. Once you’ve cleaned them thoroughly rinse well with cool water and continue.

You can cook the produce either in the microwave or steam them on the stove. You will want the produce cooked until the material is soft and pliable. If you can mash the produce with a fork it is thoroughly cooked.

Next, put the cooked produce into a blender or food processor and puree until it is rendered into a smooth, velvety texture. If you have saved any baby food jars from the past you can reuse them for storing the mixture temporarily. The refrigerated mix will only remain good for a few short days, but frozen it can last up to two weeks. Try spooning the mixture into ice cube trays and then storing the cubes in bags. Thaw when ready to serve and you have fresh food available all the time.