Making Baby Food

Equipment you'll need
You'll need a tool to grind or puree the food. A blender or food processor will work, but a hand-turned food mill with stainless steel blades for different textures of food is best. You'll also need storage containers or ice cube trays for refrigerating or freezing leftovers.

Food to buy
Choose the freshest fruits and vegetables and try to use them within a day or two. When fresh isn't available, frozen is fine. Good fruits to start with include apples, apricots, bananas, blueberries, mango, peaches, pears, plums, prunes, and raspberries. (Some experts suggest waiting to introduce berries until your baby is 10 months old because he'll be better able to digest them then.) Good vegetable choices include asparagus tips, avocados, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, peas, potatoes, sweet peppers, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. (Some babies find corn hard to digest, and a few are even allergic to it.)

Caution: Some vegetables (even if they're organic) — particularly beets and spinach, but also turnips, carrots, and collard greens — can be high in nitrates. Babies who ingest a high level of these chemicals can develop a type of anemia. The level of nitrates in your vegetables depends on the soil and water in which the vegetables were grown. Well water, in particular, can be especially high in nitrates because of chemical fertilizer runoff. To be on the safe side, you may not want to use any of the vegetables mentioned above when making your own baby food, or you may choose to use them sparingly as your baby gets bigger. If you do serve them occasionally, don't save any for leftovers because the nitrate level can increase during storage. (Baby food companies test commercial baby food for these chemicals, so store-bought baby food should be free of nitrates.)

How to prepare
First, wash your hands, the produce, and all the bowls and utensils. Peel and pit the fruit if necessary. All vegetables — and some fruits like apples and prunes that need to be softened — should be cooked before pureeing or grinding. To preserve vitamins and minerals, bake, broil, or steam the produce until soft. If you boil the food, use as little liquid as possible and add some of the leftover liquid when mashing the food (or add it to the family's soup stock). To puree or mash fruits or vegetables, simply add a little liquid (breast milk, formula, or cooking water) to the produce as you blend or grind, until the consistency is soupy. As your baby adapts to solid foods, you can add less liquid. If the fruit has seeds, strain before serving

To prepare meat and poultry, remove the skin and trim the fat after cooking. Then puree the cooked meat in a blender or grind up with a little liquid. For older babies you can simply chop the meat into small pieces.

Serving tips
• Serve the food no warmer than body temperature.
• Avoid heating meals in the microwave because it heats unevenly and can create "hot spots," sections of the food that are much hotter than others.
• Only dip the serving spoon into the amount of food you think your baby will eat at that feeding, because you'll need to toss what's left over. That's because your baby's saliva will thin the mixture and potentially cause bacteria to grow in the food.
• Don't season or sweeten your baby's food. He may be sensitive to certain spices, and he doesn't need the extra sugar.
• Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container and use them up within a couple of days. Or you can freeze leftovers in ice cube trays. After they're frozen solid, remove the cubes and store them in plastic freezer bags in the freezer. Fruits and vegetables frozen this way will last six months; meats, fish, and poultry will last about ten weeks.