Buying vs. Making Baby Food

   In our house we eat (*mostly*) fresh and healthy foods. I buy organic dairy (always) and everything else organic when it's on sale. Organic baby food is stupid expensive. But I don't want to feed my son jars of chemicals and preservatives. So I choose to make his food. It is significantly less expensive than buying it - unless it's on sale and you have a stack of coupons - and it's really not that hard. I invested in a bagging station made by Infantino that I scored on clearance at Target. $15 for the station and $7 for a box of 50 bags and caps. #winning

   I strictly breastfed until Baby G was 6 months old. That was a HUGE savings by itself because the average formula-fed baby consumes $1,200 in formula in one year. Ouch. So when he was ready for solids I started with plain sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots, green beans and sweet peas. Most of those went over well except for the peas. ::bleh:: After introducing fruits and saving berries for last, I started experimenting with recipes. Spinanaberry = 1 bag steamed fresh spinach, 1 whole banana, 8 whole strawberries = 10 bags of baby food. **This is G's favorite flavor and mine as well because spinach is loaded with all the best nutrients. The banana sweetens it enough to make him nuts for it. Don't waste your time fighting babies to eat peas! Spinach is where it's at!! You can add apples or banana to just about anything to sweeten it to baby's satisfaction and still sneak in the good stuff they need.

   Recipes I tried that bombed: Sweetpoturkey = Sweet potato and turkey. It tasted fine when I made it but after sitting in the freezer for a few weeks, the meat flavor became overwhelming and it was disgusting. Cinnappleturkey - Apples, cinnamon and cooked ground turkey. Same outcome. Yuck.

Savings breakdown: The average 4 oz. bag of organic baby food is $1.39. They range from $1.09 up to $2 per bag. To make my own I bought spinach: $1.99/large bag, strawberries $1.50/half carton, and a banana for $.59. To make 10 - 4 oz. bags of Spinanaberry cost me $4.09 ($.40 per bag). (The cost of different recipes vary but this is just one example) Currently Grady eats a whole bag at every meal, $1.20 a day. If I was buying organic baby food in the same size bags, he would be consuming $4.17 each day. This is a savings of $20.79 every week and $83.16 every month. Just by making my own baby food. Wash it. Steam it. Process/puree it. I label bags with the date it was made, the flavor and his name so I can send them to school. I keep a variety of flavors in stock in the freezer and whip up another batch when I run low.

P.S. I do stock up on store bought organic baby food when it's a good sale. They have better flavors (I'm not a chef) and it saves me some time. But overall, I highly recommend making your own.