using frozen fruits/veggie to make baby food

eandjay

If you use frozen fruits and vegetables to make your baby food what things do you look for in the ingredient list to steer clear of.  I want to make sure I am not feeding DS anything unnecessary.  Do I just look at added sugar and sodium?

AMYfromKY

I'm not being snarky, but why would you take the time to do that.  I would think the baby food they sell would have more nutritional value than food made from frozen veggies.  

Making baby food from fresh steamed veggies is really easy.  Probably just as easy as making it from frozen ones. 

Lynn07

The only thing I've made from frozen was peas (I didn't want to shuck all of those things!), and I just made it a point to find organic ones with no added anything (including salt). Everything else has been easy to make from fresh veggies/fruit. And FWIW, i did some research before hand, and it actually is still more nutritionally sound to make food from frozen (without additives) than to buy the premade baby food. In fact, I'm pretty sure I read on one of the sites said there was one or two items (I can't remember which ones) that were better from a frozen state because it retained more nutrients!

MrsF2007

This is from wholesomebabyfood.com (which I follow just as closely as others follow kellymom)

"You can use frozen fruits and vegetables to make your homemade baby food recipes. Frozen fruits and vegetables for making homemade baby food may be a better alternative than fresh. Frozen fruits and veggies may be more fresh than fresh. Many sources and food authorities say that oftentimes frozen foods are more "fresh" than fresh. Were you to have the choice between a soft, bruised and less than Fresh acorn squash versus frozen squash to make homemade baby food, the choice for many people would be to purchase the Frozen squash. 

Further, many fruits and vegetables that are seasonal may be unavailable as fresh and using their frozen counterparts is acceptable. There is some debate about using Frozen foods to make baby food. There are a few books that do not recommend using frozen foods and then re-freezing those veggies or fruits. The recommendation in those books advocate that only 100% fresh foods be used for homemade baby foods. Oftentimes, those same books will recommend that only Organic foods should be used and that anything other than Organic and Fresh isn't good and should be avoided entirely. This is untrue and sadly, often scares parents away from making their own baby food.

In a "perfect" situation, Organic and Fresh this is the BEST choice by far. However, there are many parents who do not and will not have economical or logistical access to only fresh fruits and vegetables (or Organic, locally farmed meats) than there are parents who do. In this instance, using frozen is far better than using canned." 

finally_mommy2b

AMYfromKY:

I'm not being snarky, but why would you take the time to do that.  I would think the baby food they sell would have more nutritional value than food made from frozen veggies.  

Making baby food from fresh steamed veggies is really easy.  Probably just as easy as making it from frozen ones. 

the food they sell in stores has all kinds of additives. you just can't be 100% about whats in it.

like pp said, most frozen fruits/veggies are flash frozen so they retain all of their nutrients. just look for organic, and look at the actual ingredients, because just b/c the bag says organic or natural, doesn't mean the ingredients are always. you have to look on the label.

jessicaclare

AMYfromKY:

I'm not being snarky, but why would you take the time to do that.  I would think the baby food they sell would have more nutritional value than food made from frozen veggies.  

Making baby food from fresh steamed veggies is really easy.  Probably just as easy as making it from frozen ones. 

Like others said, a lot of the time most frozen veggies are flash frozen and retain much more of their nutritional value than "fresh" veggies from the grocery store. Unless you are buying locally grown food from a farmers market, what you buy in the grocery store likely has traveled thousands of miles and lost a lot of its nutrients in the process. If you live in a northern state like I do, its often a MUCH better idea to use frozen vegetables, unless its summer and everything is in season.

We actually eat a lot more frozen vegetables in our house in winter than we do so-call "fresh" ones. The vegetables in the produce section really aren't all that fresh once they get to me. 

LarloBlue

just an FYI frozen veggies are usually better than fresh. Frozen are picked at the best time and blanched then frozen, while fresh are shipped, bumped, scratched, etc which causes the nutritional value to go down.