Solids: food preparation
The only safe rule as far as babies' food is concerned is to always cook thoroughly; this is especially true of meat, chicken and eggs.
Cooking and reheating food
© Jupiter
Never give raw eggs to babies. Try to avoid giving reheated leftovers to your baby, but if you do, make sure they are thoroughly heated through first. Chilled or frozen food should be heated up once only and any leftovers thrown away. If you're preparing food in advance, cool it as quickly as possible before storing in the refrigerator or freezer. If you put hot food straight into the fridge it may raise the temperature and warm other foods.
Ready-prepared foods
Whether you make up your baby's foods yourself or buy ready-made foods in jars is up to you. Bought foods are certainly convenient if you're travelling or you are in a hurry, but they are more expensive than home-made meals, and may not be as nutritious. However, there are now some excellent ranges of freshly prepared food. If you are going to use ready-prepared foods on a regular basis, follow the guidelines listed below.
Ready-prepared foods
- Check the list of ingredients on the tin or jar. They are listed in order of concentration, so never buy anything in which water is listed first.
- Make sure that the jar is vacuum sealed when you open it, otherwise it may be contaminated.
- Don't buy “mixed dinners”; they usually contain a lot of thickener.
- If possible, buy meat and vegetable dishes separately and then combine them if you want a “mixed dinner”.
- Don't keep opened jars in the refrigerator for longer than two days. Throw them away after that.
- Don't buy anything that has added salt, sugar, modified starch or monosodium glutamate (MSG).
- Never store food in opened tins; put it into a dish or bowl and keep it covered in the refrigerator.
- Don't heat the food up in the jar - it may crack.
- It is very unhygienic to feed the baby from the jar then keep the rest for a second meal, as it will have become contaminated with saliva. It's all right to feed your baby from a jar if he's going to eat the lot or if, for example, you're on the move and you don't mind throwing away what's left when he's had enough.
Preparing food for babies
You'll probably already have a liquidizer or food mill; if you haven't, buy a cheap easy-to-use, hand-operated blender. You'll only have to purée food for the initial months of your baby's new diet; thereafter it can be mashed or chopped finely. At the beginning you may find it easier just to sieve the food, especially when you're not making up big batches. If you've frozen portions of food, a small pan is ideal for heating them up quickly.
For thinning down your home-prepared foods simply add water; the water in which you've steamed fruit or vegetables (with no additional salt or sugar), is ideal, but you can also add expressed milk, cow's milk, soup, tomato, orange or apple juice. For thickening, use ground, wholegrain cereals such as wheatgerm or rice, cottage cheese, yogurt or mashed potato. If you feel that you need to sweeten foods use naturally sweet fruit juice or dextrose. Never use refined sugar - brown or white. Our bodies don't need to have it, it's bad for our teeth and it only encourages a sweet tooth.
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 30.06.2010
Get more on this subject…
