Homemade baby foods allow you to have control over the quality and type of ingredients used and allow children to try different flavors, contributing to the formation of their taste . Let's find out better.
Weaning and weaning
According to a modern orientation on weaning, known as weaning or complementary feeding on request, it would not be necessary to offer homogenized children, who would eat, from the first taste of food other than milk, the same food that the rest of the family consumes, obviously minced or cut into strips. Not all pediatricians agree with this mode of weaning and prefer to follow the classic scheme, which involves the use of baby food.
Beyond the philosophical discourses on weaning, which are not the objective of this article, following a classic weaning scheme does not necessarily mean offering one's children ready meals. If you think about it, in fact, the baby foods that we buy in supermarkets, in pharmacies or in stores specializing in products for early childhood, are nothing more than ready meals. They are very well prepared and are also carefully checked, because the laws on the subject, especially here in Italy, are particularly severe, but they are still "ready meals", with the limits that this entails; I refer above all to the taste, which can often be too much approved. Weaning also means making children taste different foods because a lot of their taste is formed in this delicate moment.
Practical advice on homemade baby food
Preparing baby food at home is not complicated and there is no need to have expensive food processors. All you need is a steamer and a homogenizer, or even a blender. It is not even necessary to prepare them every day, you can cook larger quantities, to be portioned and frozen. With a little organization you can offer natural and seasonal baby food to your little children, even if you have little time and spend most of the day away from home.
How to make homemade baby food at home
Fruit homogenized foods are the simplest to make at home. It is necessary to blend one or more seasonal fruits, preferably from organic farming, without adding sugar. As a liquid part you can use orange juice, yogurt or milk, according to age.
In reality, fruit would not even need to be blended or blended. Apple and pear, which are usually the first fruits to be introduced into the child's diet after six months of age, can simply be grated, as our grandmothers used to do; while the banana just crush it with a fork.
You can explore all the properties and benefits of apples
How to make vegetable homogenized at home
The basis of vegetable homogenized is vegetable broth . According to classic weaning schemes, this should be prepared first with a few particularly digestible vegetables and then gradually adding one vegetable at a time.
To obtain the homogenized vegetable, simply blend the vegetables used to make the vegetable broth, season them with a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and add them to the pasta, rice or creams that are usually used during weaning. Both vegetable broth and vegetable homogenized can be stored in the freezer for a few days, even in containers that are usually used to make ice cubes.
If stored in the refrigerator, vegetable stock and vegetable homogenized should be consumed within 24 hours. As for fruit, even in the case of vegetables it would be better to use the one from organic farming, preferably in season.
Vegetables can be added to vegetables, meat, fish or even cheese (for example ricotta or stracchino).
How to make meat baby food at home
To make homogenized meat at home, you must still prepare the vegetable broth, which will be the liquid part of your baby food. Meat, on the other hand, should be steamed. Let's look at a recipe as an example; all types of meat can be treated in the same way.
Homogenized with turkey meat . Prepare a vegetable broth with a potato, a carrot, celery, a courgette and a bay leaf. Meanwhile, steam 60 grams of turkey breast. Put in the homogenizer part of the vegetables (half a potato, half a carrot and half a courgette), the meat, about 100 ml of vegetable broth and a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and let it go until you get a very smooth cream. Season pasta or rice and finish the dish with a teaspoon of Parmesan.
Fish-based baby foods can be prepared in the same way as meat-based ones.
Weaning and feeding the small child are always questions to discuss with your pediatrician. Here we only wanted to provide some practical advice on how to prepare natural baby foods at home.
