Saturday, May 15, 2010

Making Your Own Baby Food Can Be Dangerous

As you saw last week in the video of A eating her first food we are starting to feed our daughter. The next step is carrots and sweet potatoes ground into the all too familiar baby food mush.

My wife and I always said that when A started to eat solids we would make our own baby food so we were a bit surprised when we saw the pamphlet our doctor gave us. On the back it had a statement that said it was not safe to prepare some baby foods at home, such as beets, turnips, carrots and collard greens, because they can cause an unusual form of anemia (Methemoglobinemia).

When I asked why this was I learned that it had to do to with a chemical found in the soil of food grown using conventional fertilizers.

So if you're telling me that it is unsafe to eat these as a baby then why am I eating these foods? Baby food manufacturers monitor this but I can buy a carrot off the shelf that was grown with conventional fertilizer and has these chemicals in it.

What else am I putting into my body that I shouldn't be or wouldn't want to if I knew about it?

It is finding these sort of things out that really makes me want to pack up, move to the country and live off the land so I can control what I am consuming.  But would that be enough?  I would still need to use water and air that is polluted from conventional farming and modern life.

If you are making your own baby food you should read more about it and everyone should take a second to consider what we are doing to this planet and ourselves.      

4 comments:

  1. We made L's baby food. The only time we used pre-made stuff was one time we went on vacation and even then we stuck mostly to fruits with a complimentary veggie (horrid smelling) jar every once in awhile. This is terrifying. "Thanks" for sharing.

    Terrifying aside/ I have to tell you making her food felt 'better' - I guess even with the chemicals it seems I unknowingly gave my kid. Squash, turnips and carrots (of course) being her favorite. Thanks for linking this / next time I'll know better. Have you seen these? http://www.munchkin.com/products/detail.html?pID=37 It seems kind of gross / straining food as you eat it - but it's kind of cool - you can put 'just about anything ' in there and while the baby eats it / it strains it small enough so there are no worries on size of food.

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  2. So what about organic carrots? Are they bad too? Anyway making baby food is so easy, I never made all but I never bought many jarred foods with any of the kids. I liked to "make" foods with a fork and a bowl: squished ripe bananas, avocado, cooked sweet potato. I was never a believer in totally smooth texture like in the jars. Also hated the flaked rice cereal, never ever came close to finishing a box with any of the kids but I made mushy real rice. When she approaches "cheerio age" try the plain puffed rice in the health lane, they are cheap and are easily dissolvable so babies are safer with them than cheerios plus the only ingredient is rice. So sorry about the advice but I have more if you ever need it!

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  3. We have a couple of the "Baby Safe Feeder" brand - maybe we could send those to you. Both kids enjoyed them at different ages/stages. Good for teething when you put colder stuff in, but a good ol' mushy banana was great (and gross!).

    And, it's true. The more you learn about our food, the more worried you get. But, enjoy making stuff for little A. Will you try bananas soon or wait as it's pretty sweet?

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  4. Thanks everyone. We are still on the rice cereal for now. 'A' has made great improvements with actually eating it and we may move on to carrots later today. Videos to follow for sure.
    For now we are going to stick with the jar stuff, but once we figure out what the heck we are doing we may start making are own. Lots of info to gather.

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