If you're anything like me you've probably spent plenty of time browsing in the baby aisle of the supermarket right from when you were pregnant, exploring the vast range of supplies and accoutrements that the modern baby apparently needs.
Row upon row of baby foods with enticing names promise to turn your baby into a gourmet diner, scientific looking labels attest to nutritional values and guide you through the complex path of age-appropriate foods. Once your baby is born you forget about them and spend the first few months breast or bottle feeding without having to even think about solids.
At six months you are suddenly brought back face to face with the baby food section - you are about to take the first step into solid foods with your baby. Looking at prices for the first time, the uncomfortable realisation hits - breastfeeding may be free but as soon as your baby hits solids it looks like you are going to be spending half your grocery budget to provide a varied selection of baby jars for the rest of his first year.
The good news is that there are cheaper and better alternatives to jars for your baby's first foods and they don't all have to be time consuming.
With my first baby I had a bit of time to spare and there were other people around to hold him now and then. I read the baby books and invested in a baby recipe book, bought organic vegetables and cooked up a storm, dirtying all the saucepans in the kitchen to produce my own gourmet baby food to freeze in convenient portions. This was quite fun and allowed me the illusion of being a Supermum for a little while, but it made for an awful lot of washing up! As soon as baby number two came along my baby recipe book got shelved and I stocked up on those oh so convenient jars of food and never mind the expense with my sanity at stake here!
It wasn't until I had my third baby that I discovered one of those best kept secrets about babies and baby food:
Babies can actually eat the same food that the rest of the family eat!
This isn't in any way a new concept - it is what people have always done and what people in most of the world still do. We have just been blinded by the convenience of canned baby food into forgetting the alternatives, convinced that to have a balanced diet a baby needs specialist foods cooked up by a team of nutritional scientists!
Of course you may need to do a bit of editing of the family menu (if burgers and pizza are your mainstays this approach wouldn't work so well!) but with just a little thought you can produce plenty of baby food that is freshly cooked and nutritious, at the same time as you are cooking for the rest of the family. You can have a few jars on standby for days when you are too rushed or are going to be out and about, but the rest of your grocery budget will be freed up for buying fresh ingredients that you all can enjoy.
The only magic device you need to make this easy is one of those hand held blenders that can whiz up small amounts in a cup. If you don't already have one it is an excellent investment as you will save far more than its purchase price with your home-prepared baby food and will be able to use it for all sorts of other things too.
Another useful, but not essential, piece of kitchen equipment is a steamer, as it is the best way to cook vegetables and retain the maximum amount of vitamins. I use one of these anyway to cook for my family, but you can also use a metal colander over a saucepan covered with a lid, or if you prefer to boil vegetables, just use less water, omit the salt, seasoning the vegetables afterwards, and don't overcook them, then they will be perfectly nutritious for your baby as well as the rest of your family.
When you first introduce your baby to solids at around six months you will be introducing single foods and starting off with simple vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes.
All you need to do while you are cooking your family meal is to steam a few more vegetables than usual, remove a portion to the blender cup for your baby, before you add any seasoning for your own tastes, and blitz it to a puree. It's as simple as that! Instant no-effort baby food with hardly any extra washing up created! If the puree is too thick in consistency you can add a little boiled water. You will easily get enough for two or three meals, so you can either freeze the extra in an ice cube tray or individually portioned in the smallest size freezer bag, or just refrigerate the rest if it will be used the next day.
This method works with all the vegetables that you will want to introduce in the early stages: broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, squash, peas, spinach can all be cooked for the whole family saving time and energy (both yours and the electricity or gas!). The important thing to remember is that babies shouldn't have any extra salt, so always remove your baby's portion before adding any salt or other seasoning.
Once your baby is ready to be introduced to more complex foods such as meat or fish you can continue to use your hand held blender and serve him up part of the family meal. A small slice of tender roast or casseroled chicken with a few steamed carrots can be blended together and mixed with some mashed potato or rice for texture. Just make sure there are no big lumps of meat left that could cause choking and be sure that all meat that you give your baby is well cooked through.
The great advantage to your baby is that she is getting acclimatized to the flavours of your family food and every meal is slightly different, so she is learning about different flavours and consistencies - smoother, lumpier, thicker, runnier. She sees that she is eating what you are eating as she gets older and feels part of the family and meal times become a social occasion. As she gets used to eating more complex foods you don't need to puree everything any more - foods can be mashed or chopped so she'll get exposed to far more variety eating the family menu than she would get from even the choicest selection of jars.
There are plenty of other foods that can be turned into instant baby foods to have on hand for when you aren't cooking at all. Plain unsweetened yoghurt is a food that babies usually love, ripe pears, banana or avocado can be mashed into an instant meal and a packet of instant baby porridge or rice is a useful backup too and can be mixed in with other foods to ring the changes and provide some more substance.
Besides - have you tasted a jar of baby food yourself? Try the carrot. I'll bet it doesn't taste like any carrot you've ever eaten! By sharing your food with your baby he'll be tasting and discovering food that tastes like real food, you can gradually introduce him to the foods that you like - if you eat spicy food at home there is no reason that an older baby can't join you, especially if you soften the flavour by mixing in some plain yoghurt. By sharing your family meals with your baby you are not only saving a lot of money, you are establishing his palate and giving him a better chance of accepting a wider range of foods as he grows up.
Of course however you feed a baby there is no guarantee that he or she won't end up being a picky eater. My oldest, who benefited from all my Supermum gourmet baby food and ate everything as a baby, is now at ten the pickiest of the lot, while my five year old eats almost everything.
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