I bought a food processor not long after Baby M was born, in order to make avocado pudding – a chocolate dessert that my mother-in-law had suggested to me – one that contains no dairy. The food processor made the avocados very smooth, so when we decided to start Baby on “people food”, I just used that to whiz up some avocado (sans cocoa and sugar, mind you) for him. Then we moved on to sweet potatoes, green peas, and the like. Worked like a charm, and most of what he was getting was either organic or home-grown, which is fine with me.
At Baby’s 6 month checkup, the doctor said baby M was doing well, but strongly suggested we start baby on fortified rice cereal, to keep his iron levels up. Now, I have felt the need to take an iron supplement myself, lately, so that made a certain amount of sense. However, baby got a funny welt-y rash on his cheeks after a few days of rice cereal (even the organic stuff has a lengthy list of additives), so we stopped that and decided to try chicken, instead.
The food processor did not do nearly as good a job on the chicken as it had done on the avocado. Baby M was not impressed at all, though I wasn’t sure if it was the taste of our strongly-flavored farm chicken, or the somewhat stringy texture. I thought maybe we could try some organic commercial baby food, just to get some iron into his diet.
At the store, I was not impressed. Even the organic baby foods seem to have additives of one kind or another – sugar in the blueberries (as if blueberries need sweetening), and applesauce in the “chicken and sweet potato” combination. Really? Applesauce? Whatever for? In addition, I couldn’t find plain organic chicken – only combos – and the non-organic chicken baby food was pink. Pink! Seriously!
We’ve given up on the idea of buying baby food for little M. I can’t imagine licking off a pink-chicken spoon the way I happily lick off a home-stewed-prunes spoon when I’m heating M’s dinner. In fact, the idea completely disgusts me. I can’t imagine feeding any of that guck to my baby, period. Processed adult food is nasty enough, but I think commercial baby food may, in fact, be even more gross.
Back to the drawing board…
if baby M needs an iron supplement you can always use polyvisol or trivsol – they iron/vitamin drops for infants. I gave them to my kids and they were just fine – but then I’m old and from back in the day when there really wasn’t much for commercial baby food.
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-iron.php
I’d try adding some herbs to the foods you regularly feed him. I’m not sure what the difference in dried/fresh apricots as far as iron goes, but my babies loved apricots. I might even try running a bit of liver through the food mill. It might grind up better than the chicken.
Good luck!
We started our kids on bones.
They can chew on the bone, get some iron and work on their gums at the same time.
Commercial baby food and commercial adult food are the same things; junk.
At six months, we just offered whatever we were having for supper.
Sometimes they eat it, other times they throw it.
Our doctor says the same things at six months.
I wonder how the rest of the world’s babies manage to survive without enriched baby cereal?
They eat a full complement of real food at an early age, and breastfeed for longer.
I’d be more inclined to offer him a bit of what we were having if it weren’t for the allergies. For now, I’m sticking with single-food meals for him.