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Homemade Baby Food
A Fresh Start to Healthy Eating
By Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers
Introducing solid foods is a very important step in your baby's development and well-being. In fact, studies show that babies who are fed nutritious, healthy diets grow into stronger kids and better-adjusted eaters than those who are fed poor diets.
Many parents don't realize that making baby food at home is a simple and economical plan to provide your baby with the best in quality, nutrition and taste. It makes it easy for you to ensure your child gets the best start possible. Making baby food using fresh, all-natural ingredients has many benefits, including:
- Increased nutritional value
- Elimination of additives
- Improved freshness
- Added variety
- Enhanced control
- Lower costs
Processed baby foods have added water, sugars and starchy fillers. While these products are not nutritionally bad for your baby, their use in baby food dilutes the nutrient content of the actual foods. To make matters worse, processed baby foods are cooked at high temperatures to kill bacteria, so they can be stored in jars at room temperature. Bacteria are not the only things that are eliminated in this process. Vitamins and nutrients are also destroyed. Many baby food manufacturers compensate for the loss of vitamins by artificially adding some of them back in after the food is processed.
When you make baby food at home, you can cook it quickly. This process not only preserves the wonderful color and taste of the food, but most important, it maximizes the foods' nutrient content for your precious baby.
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