Baby food and other food for thought....

So Keegan has tried almost every available fruit and vegetable that they sell in the pre-made baby food. Let me tell you there aren't that many of them. I think a kid can only eat so much sweet potato, peas, and bananas. Although Keegan really loves his bananas so maybe he can't get enough of that. So as I desperately search the store shelfs for other fruits and veggies I begin to wonder why baby food is so Americanized. I mean where are the avocado, kiwi, quinoa, buckwheat, broccoli, legumes, papaya, mango, any many other baby foods? Are our babies stuck living in a world where there only exists a very limited number of fruits and vegetables? Then we wonder why our 2-3 year olds balk at trying something new...

So in frustration I decided to embark on the latest of many past and yet to come baby crusades...I am going to make Keegan some yummy baby food. How hard can it be? So I take the first step in any well thought out and well planned research. I Google how to make baby food. I get numerous hits (a number of them rather dubious) one website was really helpful though ( http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/). We'll get back to that information though. Anyway, let's just say I was less than thrilled with the majority of results. Okay step 2 of research visit babycenter.com and search there. They actually had a very nice overview of baby food; but no specifics. It just now came to me; I probably should have searched with wikihowtos also, but I didn't. So anyway I go back to wholesomebabyfood.com.

I figure how complicated can it be. You grind it up and freeze it. In interest of wanting Keegan to continue his life (not die of food poisoning); I begin reading wholesomebabyfood.com. Apparently things like carrots and broccoli are a no-no until the baby is over 6 months old. These contain nitrates that can turn into posionous nitrites in young babies causing blue baby syndorme; apparently it has something to do with the baby's stomach chemicals being right...I am not going to go into it all. The carrots from the store are treated to removed the nitrates.

Okay so...no broccoli for a month or so. Next food strawberries.

After more reading I find there is a general rule to not feed your babies berries until they are over 12 months old. Something about their digestive system not being able to handle it. Blueberries and cranberries are exempt because they are not real berries.

Okay so no feeding Keegan strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or boysenberries.

I had heard that citrus is bad to give babies before 12 months. This fact is reiterated on the site.
Apparently eating citrus before 12 months greatly raises the chance your child will have a citrus allergy later in life.

Okay...no citrus.

What about the kiwi, mango, papaya, starfruit etc. Well, exotic fruits are more likely to cause allergic reaction in young infants. So you should hold off on those until he's 9 months or older. Sorry, Keegan I already fed you some kiwi...looks like you are fine though so we can knock that one off the list.

So...no exotic fruits.

Well we love tomatoes at our house, so what about those? Well tomatoes, corn, and cranberries are some of the many fruits and vegetables deemed to acidic for infants under 9 months. They are known to upset tummies.

So, no acidic foods.

With my list of exciting things I want Keegan to try drastically limited. I decide that we'll try eating some avocados. Now to find a way to puree these...something easy to clean. The site recommends using a hand grinder. Low and behold Babies R' Us has a hand grinder *with* carrying case for the low price of $9.99. I buy it and am excited to try my hand at baby food making.

I turn in my final project for school (no more school, yes!). Then set about steaming plums in the microwave. I quarter them and plop them into my hand dandy easy to clean hand grinder. And I grind....and I grind...okay still grinding over here. Now plum juice is leaking down the sides of the grinder. My hands are red, the counter is red. But, by golly in about 15 minutes I have ground 4 plums into a pulp that would make someone proud I am sure. The fruits of my labor (ha) fill up a whole 4 spots in the ice cube tray. Each cube in an icecube tray is supposed to be ~1 ounce. How many ounces does Keegan normally eat I wonder. Looking at the gerber food jar I see that it contains 3.5 ounces. Oh... Oh, goody I just made Keegan one meals worth of food. I look at the plum juice running down the side of the counter and sigh; then for good measure swear a little bit. Then tell Lyle we're going to get a $60 personal hand blender, like the Magic Bullet because my arm hurts and I am never hand grinding again. Keegan is especially unappreciative as Lyle puts him to bed; we didn't get to go on a walk because mom was making baby food..so no swing ride for him. Wow, this making baby food thing was just a great idea....