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Saturday, August 28, 2010

Why is food so complicated?

As I opened a jar of baby food for Lilly earlier (she has some digestive problems that put her a little behind in eating age), my brain once again went off into that "good moms make their own baby food" speech. I just finished reading Green Babies, Sage Moms, by Lynda Fassa. Reading it was eye-opening from the standpoint of revealing how many toxins and dangers are in our world, but it left me wondering how it was possible for anyone to survive. From plastics to parabens (throw out makeup!), everything seems damning. She recommends making your own baby food, of course, which is something I am strongly committed to. For now. Until I'm running on three hours of sleep and my seven month old is starving.

I love the idea of pureeing, then freezing, all sorts of fruits and veggies. But the truth is, I'm terrible at planning ahead. I try, but there is always something better or more immediate to do. My brain isn't set to four days away; I was one of those college kids who wrote papers the night or two before (but they were still good, I promise!). So will I be able to follow through when it comes to baby food? If I can't, will that make me a bad mom? Will it train my kids to like sodium- and sugar-laden food their entire life?

Of course, I could always attempt to delegate the food-making to V... I might have something there!

3 comments:

  1. I didn't make my kids baby food and they turned out just fine. I always planned to make it but Shelley didn't eat much jarred food and Paul nursed way more than ate solids so it just didn't seem like a big deal. Shelley has never been picky but I didn't give her that option either. From the first table food of sucking on a carrot stick (no really) she was pumped full of fresh fruit and veggies. I would feed her what i ate and maybe just mash it up a bit more. Paul, like I said, nursed a lot more than eating solids, but he did like the jarred food when he was older. I would buy the gerber band because it has two ingredients on the label, fruit and water (or veggie and water etc.) that's what matters. For those moms who can and do make the food ahead of time, more power to them, does it make them a better mom than me? I don't think so. I have two incredibly smart, polite kids and I don't think I could have done anything differently to make them better.

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  2. Carrot stick? That's great. And I think that's what it comes down to, is fruits and veggies and good stuff, no matter where it comes from. I like Gerber - if I buy, that sounds good. And chances are I'll buy!

    You're right about your kids being great, regardless of what kinds of food they had/have. Good to know decisions like this aren't the end-all-be-all of success.

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  3. Making and freezing really isn't all that time consuming, although it does involve planning ahead. One of the moms I sit for makes all the food for her very hungry daughter. She uses a Beaba and that makes it much faster. I recommend the book Super Baby Foods if you are interested in going this route.
    However, I never made Penny any purees because I did Baby-led Weaning (look it up, there's also a book titled that) which basically means skip the purees. And she didn't even really care for solids all that much until she was around 10 months. It was mostly just playing with them until then. She's breastfed and has always been fed on demand, so I wasn't worried about it. So if your 7 mo. old is hungry and you don't have any purees on hand, put her on the breast, and then if she wants solids, give her some steamed veg or something. Simple.

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