Jarred Baby Food vs. Homemade

I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my sister-in-law the other day and stopped in the jarred baby food section. She looked at the price of the jar and asked what the point was in making your own food if you can conveniently purchase it at such a low price. While the cost is certainly appealing, I worry about my child’s health if I were to feed him such preservative-rich offerings.

Depending on the brand, for $0.47-$0.67 you can buy jars of chemically processed food with a shelf life of 5 to 10 years. Alternatively, you can spend 20 minutes a week making healthy chemical-free baby food. To me it is worth taking the brief time each week to make healthy food for my child food that can be frozen. In a small fridge-top freezer, fresh-made food can last for 3-4 months; in a deep freeze: up to six months.

Society has gotten lazy about their food and eating habits and there have been repercussions: children aren’t tolerating foods as much, allergies are on the rise, and babies are becoming fussier eaters. If you’ve ever tasted baby food you have my sympathies I wanted to try it before my son was due to start eating to explore the taste textures etc. As a trained chef my opinion is jarred baby food in general is totally unpalatable; the colors are off and you can’t even differentiate what the taste is. For fun I had my cousin close her eyes and sample some of the food she was going to feed her son and tell me what it was. She didn’t know what she was eating – how scary is that?

The Good News
For parents who really think they don’t have the time to cook for their child, there is now a great company (Sweet pea baby food) offering pre-measured food that is flash frozen and good for 3-6 months in your freezer. The food is made from organic vegetables and if you tell them the age of your child they can tell you which product they have for that age group. I tried their product at the baby boom show this spring and I can actually differentiate the flavors; it was like a party in my mouth. It was bland compared to what a grown up pallet is used to but to a baby exploring a flavor for the first time it would have been superb.