How To Make Home-Made Baby Food From Produce Grown in Your Garden

When feeding your baby, it is important to make sure that they get a healthy and wholesome diet. We all of us need to take more responsibility for the food we eat and where it comes from, and since your baby cannot do that for themselves, of course you, as a parent or guardian, will have to do that for them. It is important for all of us to eat a varied and balanced healthy diet and dietary care is even more important for young babies, who are growing and learning at an incredible rate. Making sure your child is healthy and happy is easy when you grow your own food, and make home-made baby food from the produce grown in your garden.

In order to make soft baby food, you will usually need to blend, or mush the food to create pastes which can then be placed into sterilised jars and used whenever they are needed. A wide range of fruits and vegetables that you can grow at home are ideal for this purpose. Consider the potential of potatoes, carrots and other root crops, squash and pumpkins, peas and beans, brassicas and other leafy vegetables. Fruits, such as apples, plums, pears, cherries, strawberries, currents, raspberries and other berries all have great potential as pudding options.

A blender is not essential for making jars of baby food, but can make life a lot easier. A good blender will make it possible to make up mixes using raw and gently steamed fruits and vegetables. A pressure cooker can make it easier to make soups and stews that not only baby but the whole family can enjoy.

As well as considering the nutritional content of each of the baby food mixes that you make, it is also important to think about the seasonality of the produce that you grow. Most crops will not be available year round, but that does not mean that they cannot be stored for later use. When harvest time comes around, you can make big batches of baby food that can be frozen for use when there is less fresh produce available later in the year. To retain the nutrients as much as possible, try to freeze your produce as soon as possible after it is taken from the ground, and avoid over-cooking or over-processing your food.

When you grow your own food organically at home, you can be certain of enjoying high quality food as a family – food not adulterated with substances that are harmful to us and our planet.