Babies: 6 - 9 Months

Making food

We just started with food.  A 4 oz jar of Earth's Best is 75 cents or a dollar. A 12 oz bag of frozen fruit is about $5.  Therefore the E.B. is cheaper, however when I try to picture 3 of those jars adding up to a whole 12 oz bag it just seems smaller.  Am I going nuts or does anybody have insight on this?  TIA

Re: Making food

  • I make my own because I feel like it's healthier. I also add water to most of my purees so it does end up being more than what's in the bag if you start w/ frozen. So far I've done mostly fresh - sweet taters, corn, summer squash, chicken, bananas. I've also done frozen mangos and peaches. He loves them all!

     

    Oh... and I also add in a little bit of organic baby cereal for iron when I heat up his meals. This adds more as well...

  • I buy everything except peas fresh. To give you an idea of how cheap it is for me, I spent $20.58 at the produce place by my house the other day and was able to make enough food to feed DS 3 meals day for just over 2 months. To me that seems much cheaper than jarred food.
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  • I was just thinking, I think the jars of food are measured in fluid ounces whereas the frozen bag of fruit or veggies is measured by it's weight.
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  • imageJessie_ea:
    I buy everything except peas fresh. To give you an idea of how cheap it is for me, I spent $20.58 at the produce place by my house the other day and was able to make enough food to feed DS 3 meals day for just over 2 months. To me that seems much cheaper than jarred food.

    Just curious, are you preparing all of it now, and if so, what are you storing it in?

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  • I took a couple hours the other night and made it all. I have a bunch of ice cube trays that I freeze it in. Each cube is 1 ounce. After it's frozen I pop the food out and keep it in freezer bags. It stays good frozen for 3 months.
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  • imageJessie_ea:
    I took a couple hours the other night and made it all. I have a bunch of ice cube trays that I freeze it in. Each cube is 1 ounce. After it's frozen I pop the food out and keep it in freezer bags. It stays good frozen for 3 months.

    This is exactly what we do. I buy everything fresh except for peas, and try to buy everything from the farmers market. My power went out last week  so I had to throw out all my purees. When I brought new I spent 15.00 and have 60-70 cubes of squash, banana, sweet potatoes, garbanzo beans, and peas. I plan on doing this every 2 weeks and just add different foods. I freeze them in Ziploc bags then place the bag in Tubber wear containers to keep them organized.1 jar is 1 meal right? So you need 2-3 per day so that's 2.25 per day, that's way more then you would spend on making it yourself. 

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  • We have only used fresh and he loves everything he eats now. I feel like it is much cheaper because for a few dollars i have 8 3oz servings. If you hot up farmers markets, it is super cheap, fresh and healthy! I think frozen would be more expensive to use.
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  • I make our own because the jarred stuff smells and tastes nasty to me. I don't want to feed my kid something I wouldn't eat. Some fresh produce is more expensive than buying jarred, but a lot is cheaper. I spent $2 on organic green beans and made 24 oz of food. Jarred green beans would have cost about $6.

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  • This has been really helpful.  Thanks ladies.  Sorry about losing power, how heartbreaking!
  • I've been making pureed bananas & pears for her to take to daycare in the mornings.  I didn't know I could make a lot of food & put it in the freezer.  I'll have to try that.  I'll also have to hit up the farmers market.
  • imageJessie_ea:
    I took a couple hours the other night and made it all. I have a bunch of ice cube trays that I freeze it in. Each cube is 1 ounce. After it's frozen I pop the food out and keep it in freezer bags. It stays good frozen for 3 months.
    We do this too. I've added it up, and I have def saved money. I also didn't buy any extra equipment - just new Oxo Baby ice trays and some ziplock bags. Those peeps that buy food makers i think will rarely see much savings. We would buy organic jarred, and that can run over a dollar to a dollar and a half per serving. Buying organic produce and making the purees always came up to under a dollar per serving. Plus, it just is so much healthier, and not full of preservatives. I wouldn't really care the cost for giving her something better.
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  • Just posted on this and scrolled down to see your post. :) Google wholesomebabyfood.com  GREAT website with lots of info and recipes. I make most of her food and keep some in the pantry for when we go out. Its a lot easier than I thought. And way cheaper if you buy whats in season and at a market. GL!
  • We make our own. If you can use as much fresh as you can and that will help with the costs. And when you make your own food you can bulk it up a little more. We bought a small package of blueberries and got 12 oz. We mix it with his oatmeal and it's a nice hearty breakfast. We found that DS does half a banana at a time--so a bunch of 5 bananas is about 10 servings (for now). You can always use cereals and similar things to thicken up your homemade food.

     

    Just play around with making your own. If you find that you're not as into it, that's totally fine. LO will get just as much nutrition either way. However, I'm really enjoying making our own because then it feels less like babyfood to me--he's sort of eating what we are eating. It's fun :D I also feel like it'll make the transition to finger foods and table foods easier since we are literally just pureeing what we're eating

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