“Organic”, “No added sugar”, “No preservatives or artificial flavours” “nothing else”.… These are the claims you often find on the labels of commercial infant foods that claim to be healthy, but how healthy are they?
What’s wrong with normal food? I ask. In my opinion no commercial baby food is better than real wholesome fresh food. Why is commercial baby food NOT so healthy?
1) Firstly, commercial baby food is usually a blend of foods e.g. Spinach + Apple + Broccoli + Peas. My issue with this is that when babies are weaned using these foods, they don’t learn the individual flavours of foods, in fact they don’t learn the flavours of foods at all (see 2nd point).
2) Despite having “No added sugar” many commercial baby foods contain fruit (often apple because it’s cheaper), even if they are supposed to be veggies or even meat meals. E.g. Rafferty’s ‘Spinach + Apple + Broccoli + Peas’ is actually 70% Apple, and only 4% Spinach! The high fruit content in these blends make the food incredibly sweet despite claiming ‘no added sugar’. I have even seen some meat baby foods (e.g. puree pasta bolognaise) contain apple to make them taste sweet!
3) Commercial baby foods often have a low meat content despite claiming to be a meat meal, which means they may not necessarily be a good source of iron (important for babies >6months old). For Example, Macro Baby Organic Lamb & Sweet Potato is actually only 9% lamb. Basically they are not necessarily what they seem to be, so it pays to read the nutrition panel and ingredients list.
4) The uniform texture of all commercial baby purees does nothing to enable baby to learn new food textures. Starting solid foods is as much about learning new textures as it is about learning new foods. Home-made puree will very rarely be uniform in texture so even babies fed only purees at home will be exposed to more texture variation than commercial baby food provides. Exposing baby to all sorts of different textures during the weaning process enables them to develop new motor skills. Even if puree foods are provided as baby’s first foods (although this does not have to be the case such as in Baby-Led-Weaning), baby should quickly move on to mashed and then lumpy and then finger foods.
5) The popular squeeze pouches mean that baby is often handed the pouch to suck out the puree. I can see why this is popular with a busy mum who is now free to do other things rather than feed baby, but it does not encourage feeding skills such as using a spoon. When babies start solids they already know how to suck, but they need to learn how to eat off a spoon, eat with their fingers or feed themselves.
6) But what about when you need a convenient quick snack/meal for baby and have not had time to prepare something. EASY, instead of buying a squeeze pouch of puree at the supermarket, why not just buy some normal food?! Avocado is the perfect pureed baby food all you need is a knife and teaspoon and you can just spoon it out to feed baby (or simply use your finger!). Or what about a tub of natural yoghurt or cottage/ricotta cheese? Or cut a very ripe banana in half and mash it inside its skin and serve with a teaspoon. If baby has already moved onto more textured food, any soft fruit would be suitable, or rice cakes (they do not need to be special infant ones).
It is not my intention to make mums out there feel guilty about using commercial baby foods. Your child is still likely to grow up strong and healthy, but I do want to make people aware so that they can make informed choices and not just get sucked-in by clever marketing ‘organic this’, and ‘no added sugar that’ etc etc…..
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