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Making Your Own Baby Food |
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The decision to make your own baby food is a big one. It takes time, commitment, and perserverance. Of course, in many respects, buying baby food is the easier choice. Many working moms feel this is their only choice. The purpose of this class is not only to show you why making your own baby food can be as easy as buying baby food, but how it can also be rewarding experience that is better for your wallet, better for your baby, and better for the environment. |
Parenting is a lesson in control. Over anything else it has taught me that there is so much we can’t control in the lives of our children. Luckily, one thing we can control in early childhood is what goes into our child’s body. By making your own baby food:
- You know where the food came from,
- What its nutritional content is,
- How is was prepared, packaged and stored.
- You know it is free of dangerous pesticides, preservatives, additives, or artificial colors, flavors, and dyes.
- You know that it was neither prepared nor stored in plastics containing BPA or other harmful chemical products.
- You know that you ingredients are fresh and thus have the highest nutritional value possible. |
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By making your own baby food, you can potentially save lot$ of money! buying veggies and ingredients in bulk, or at local farmers markets reduces the cost of your ingredients, making it even more affordable. Do the math next time you are at the store considering the pre-made babyfood options available to you. You’ll be surprised how much your baby eats and how much it begins to add up. |
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Better for the Environment |
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Making your own baby food significantly reduces the amount of waste involved in your child's eating habits. You totally avoid the plastic, glass, and paper packaging that store bought food involves. Waste-free eating at such a young age is an excellent example to set for your kids!
Going organic is also an obvious choice for the environment. Its encourages an agricultural production model that avoids the use of dangerous chemicals which pollute both our bodies and our earth. |
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Some Baby Food Rules to Live By |
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- Always taste what you are about to feed your baby. If you don't want to eat it, why should they?
- Variety, Variety, Variety,
- Buy Local and Organic whenever possible
- Always strive to include one grain, one leafy green, and one source of protien
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Industrial agriculture is dependent upon the heavy use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and perteoluem based fertilizers. by going organic, you avoid the possible harmful sides effects these chemicals can have on your child’s growth and development.
1. We now use about 10 lbs. of pesticides per year for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
2. Some foods, such as regular peanut butter, average over 10 different pesticides in one sample.
3. 110 out of 144 communities in Ohio have 4 or more herbicides and insecticides in every glass of water. These chemicals are not removed by water treatment such as chlorination.
4. Endocrine interrupting pesticides can alter the sex of a child during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy. In some cases, causing a person to have traits of the opposite sex.
5. Chemical exposure often causes more problems in children than in the parents who were exposed.
6. A person living in Omaha and drinking city water consumes the maximum amount of atrazine (a spray used on corn fields) in only 2.6 years.
7. Chemicals used to control mosquitoes in the 60's saved 6 million lives from malaria. However, the residue in soil and crops may last for 100 years, and the benefits may not offset the losses in the next decade.
8. Household cleaning solvents and lawncare products are now creating health problems.
9. Four solvents used in plastic food containers volatilize and now appear as residues in over 20% of our food.
10. If a person eats a normal amount of fresh non organic fruit from a supermarket on a daily basis, in one year they will have also consumed about one gallon of pesticides.
(Source: FDA Total Diet Study, "Toxics A to Z" by Harte, et al, and www. foodnews.org) |
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The Truth About Food Additives |
Artificial dyes, flavors, sweetners, and fragrances are derived from petroleum and can cause strong reactions when consumed, depnding on your body chemistry. It is very important that you monitor the effect these substances have on your kids, as they can result in behavioral problems that are often diagnosed and treated with pharmaceutical medications not tested for use in children.
A few of the typical side effects of these artifical ingredients are:
- trouble concentrating
- depression
- hyperactivity
- irritability
- fearfulness |
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