August 1, 2011 8 months
About a week ago John and I were working on our budget for the upcoming months. Which led me to figure out how much baby food was costing me a week. I knew the number was high because at 83 cents a jar and 3-5 jars a day it adds up fast.
I only buy organic baby food which definitely adds to the cost. I buy Earth’s Best because it is the least expensive of the organic baby foods and you get the most food for your money.
Gerber appears to be the better deal because you get 2 containers for around 1.50 (depending on stores and sales, this price is an average) but the 2 containers only contain about 2.5 -3 oz compared to Earth’s Best 4 oz jars.
A friend of mine makes her own food and inspired me to try to make my own.
I had always imagined that making my own would be too time consuming and too expensive because of all the organic produce I would have to buy. Though it turns out that there are many foods that it is not necessary to buy organic.
Also a few organic apples cost about $2.80 and I got about 18 oz of baby food out of it. For 2.80 I would have gotten approx 3 jars of EB or 12 oz of baby food.
With foods that don’t have to be organic the savings is bigger. Five sweet potatoes cost $3.70 and I was able to make 34 oz of baby food. For $3.70 I would have gotten 4 jars of baby food or 16 oz of food.
As for time it doesn’t take very long to make a batch of food. I have been doing a food a day on days that I don’t work. It usually takes me close to an hour start to finish and depending on the food. Pealing the food takes the longest but once it’s baked or boiled it is quickly pureed in a blender.
But the real question, other than cost, when it comes to making your own food is will the baby like it?
Jackson is picky about consistency and temperature when it comes to food. Every day is basically another episode of the Three Little Bears, is it too hot? Too cold? Or Just right?
So far I have made Apples / Banana’s, a Zucchini-Eggplant-Summer squash mix (ZESS), and sweet potatoes. The A/B came out with the best consistency though when I defrosted them they were a bit watery so I added some baby oatmeal cereal to them and Jackson gobbled them up.
The Sweet Potatoes came out too thick, even though I added what I thought was enough water they still seem thick. Jackson likes them but he doesn’t seem to be crazy about the consistency of them.
The ZESS mix was a disaster. First off these three veggies have so much water in them that they were a mess.
I had to remove seeds which left little of the veggie. I skinned the Eggplant but left the skin on the Zucchini because it gets soft when you cook it and without the skin there really wasn’t much left of the zucchini. Same thing with the summer squash.
When I pureed the batch it became what I can only describe as congealed green gook (Paging Bridget Jones dinner party?).
John took one look at it and said, “would you want to eat that”. So I tasted it and it wasn’t my favorite food but it was OK. It could have used some garlic and EVOO but he’s only 8 months old.
So I thought it would be fine. Jack first tried it on it’s own and he hated it. In went the spoon and out came green gook.
Then it was just me and the spoon while Jackson kept his lips firmly shut. I tossed it and decided we would try another day.
My next attempt I mixed it with some Earth’s Best Carrot/tomato blend and some pastina. Jackson ate it and seemed to enjoy it but I felt like this totally defeated the purpose of making my own food.
So the next time we tried it I did the ZESS with pastina and a tiny amount of pecaromano cheese. Jackson ate it but he didn’t seem to enjoy it.
Just when I thought he might be starting to like it he spit all of it up and seemed happy to be rid of it. That was it for me I through all my frozen ZESS cubes away and opened up a jar of baby food.
But I’m not defeated I’m going to try carrots this week and see how it goes.
When discussing this with a friend the other day I decided that I’m not sure how cost effective this actually is and she agreed. She had tried making way more things than I did and felt that the time and the cost wasn’t really worth it.
Also there is the convenience factor. I sometimes forget to defrost the food and I don’t have a great way to store it on the go. Heating it to room temp is a bit of a bitch, but not that hard.
There is a small joy is seeing your son enjoy something that you made for him.
My final word on it is that there are some things I will continue to make and others I will continue to buy. I can’t imagine making Jackson all of his baby food but some is nice.
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