What are the benefits of homemade baby food?

Conviction: Whoever prepares their child's food themselves knows exactly what is in it and how it was made. This idea is decisive for most parents. However, even with organic vegetables and organic meat that you have bought and prepared yourself, you cannot fully trace the farming and processing methods and the supply chains one hundred percent.

Variety: With the seemingly endless range of baby food on supermarket shelves, no one should really complain about a lack of choice. Cooking yourself can still expand the range of flavors, e.g., when you mix parsley, a little butter, or occasionally a new fruit or vegetable into the puree.

Allergies and aversions:

It is very rare for children to develop a food allergy already in infancy. If a baby cannot tolerate certain foods such as wheat, nuts, celery, or tree nuts, many parents prefer to cook themselves to reduce the risk of an allergic reaction. And: some babies simply don't like jarred food.

How can I cook baby food myself?

Steam instead of boiling: When steaming, most vitamins and nutrients are retained. Therefore, various steaming inserts matching your pot sizes are ideal.

High-quality fat is a must: Babies and toddlers receive a relatively large amount of essential fat from breast milk. Therefore, baby food should always contain some fat. For starters, a warm-pressed (refined) rapeseed or germ oil is best. Cold-pressed oils should only be used after the first year of life, otherwise they can put strain on your baby's kidneys!

Avoid salt and sugar: To start, you should prepare vegetables, fruit and other foods preferably without sugar, salt or spices. Since most babies like sweet flavors, you can safely combine carrot with a bit of apple or parsnip and pear.

Pay attention to variety: As a general rule for switching to purees: once a week you should introduce a new taste. This can be a vegetable or fruit, some fish, herbs, or sometimes a bit of butter instead of oil. Above all, you can repeatedly recombine the home-cooked vegetables to vary the flavor.

Use organic vegetables and organic meat: Organic products are not necessarily more nutrient-rich, but their contamination by pollutants is generally lower, so your baby's sensitive metabolism is spared.

Cook in bulk: Cook and puree a larger quantity of vegetables once a week, possibly also grains, potatoes and meat. This way you can combine ingredients into different "meals" or freeze them in portions plain and thaw as needed.

Use portion containers: Small plastic storage containers (suitable for freezing) or simply ice cube trays are suitable for freezing. This lets you choose portions even more flexibly.

The most important questions about homemade baby food

• Isn't cooking much more time-consuming than jars? If you consistently cook for your baby yourself, it's hardly any effort: Many parents cook about once a week a few types of vegetables, grains and fish or meat and freeze the pureed baby food in portions. This takes a total of half to one hour and therefore not much longer than the trip to the supermarket.

• Is cooking yourself cheaper than baby food from jars? Those who regularly prepare larger quantities may save a little money. However, most parents cook more out of conviction than for financial reasons. In addition, as your baby grows, you'll need to buy increasingly more different fruits and vegetables as well as meat and fish.

• How can I ensure that my baby gets all the vitamins and nutrients? The most nutrient-preserving preparation method is steaming with a steaming insert. There are also special steamers for baby food, in which you can cook and puree the food right away. Whether this investment is worthwhile has to be decided by parents themselves.

• Do I need special cooking equipment to cook for my baby? Basically you only need at least one steaming insert and a good immersion blender or mixer. Ideally, this should be a variable-speed model that reliably and evenly purees smaller quantities. Storage containers are indispensable.

• Is it okay to thaw homemade baby food in the microwave? For the nutrient content and radiation exposure of the food, thawing or heating baby food in the microwave is harmless. However, the microwave heats food unevenly, so some spots can become very hot while others remain relatively cold. Therefore you should always stir food heated in the microwave well before feeding and taste it.

Image credits:

Baby menu with potatoes, carrots and parsnips © Heike Rau - stock.adobe.com