Jars versus homemade food?

[Krystal]

What do you guys do about feeding LO?

I have just started weaning Jack and TBH I'm using only jars at the moment. Obviously as we go on if I'm making lunch with veg or something I'm gonna do him a little of that mashed up and once he hits 6 months I'm gonna give him fingerfoods like carrot etc.

Is it ok to give them jar food most of the time?

Thanks

 

[MissThing]

Well, I only give Daniel jar foods. Im buying really good ones, like Plum baby. I just thought, that untill he has a lot, It is not really worth for me to spend hours in the kitchen, epecially in this age, when everything has to be really mashed up. When he will be a bit older and be able to eat more of a normal stuff, i will cook. But not now.

 

[Misslarue]

I started off like that too. I feed Dan hipps until I had developed his tastes. It took a while and lots of wasted food, but he will now eat anything from broccolli to fish! So now he eats what I eat. It's a lot cheaper and as I'm on Slimming world I eat lots of fresh veg, fruit and fish so I know he is getting a good healthy diet.
Its fine to give jars most of the time (esp hipps as its organic) I still give Dan jars when we go out as its so much easier.

 

[Krystal]

just think he'll prob have a healtier diet with the jars than what I can offer him, once he starts eating solids properly i'll def be cooking, even got a cook book. I'll have a look at the HIPP ones, only have cow and gate at mo.

Is it ok to switch between jars? Like change from cow and gate to HIPP etc, cos I know you aren;t really supposed to with formula.. is it like that withjars??

 

[Minxy]

I made carrot, apple and other fruit/veg purees at first.

Nothing against jars but a carrot costs like 9p and I'm tight! Stanley wasn't that bothered until he could feed himself so we ended up doing the more BLW route. Apart from special baby biscuits, he ate 'regular' food. Fruit, veg, rice cakes etc.

 

[Becky&Willow]

i always swap between at jars as the different brands do different flavours so there is more varity i have only given Willow jars until recently as i amnow introducing cooked foods and giving her sandwiches and stuff i still give her jars thoughas it is much eaiser.

Also some people (not on here ) like at mother and baby groups if you go to some will try and make you feel guilty because they cook everything but dont this keeps happening to me and im thinking really thats good while not really listening

 

[trixipaws]

a mixture of both for me and milliepops. she tends to hav her savoury meal home-made food (she doesnt seem to like jars and they get wasted- at 55p each thats a lot of waste!) but for pudding she prefers jars to my mashed fruit! she LOVES her fruity jars, shes rooting like a little bird for the next spoonful before i can fill it! aww hehe.

 

[kimmumof2]

i used jars for my first but they were really expensive and some of them smelt awful! i started kayla off with apple carrot potato broccolli parsnip sweet potato and banan pureees and just froze them in ice cubes and put in freezer bags in freezer, didnt take long and now all i have to do is get whatever she is eating out the freezer in the morning to defrost! and it all cost less than a fiver and ive 6 weeks work of baby food! she loves it and i feel better that i know whats in her food.

as soon as she hit 6 months i have got the annabel karmel baby purees book and i willl start giving her some different tastes and mixing them.

at the moment her favourite tastes are banana ( no cooking or freezing neccessary, just peel n mash lol) and sweet potato with broccolli.

xxxxxx

 

[Rosieroo]

I did use a mix of jars and homemade for a while with DS, but have stopped and now he just has homemade food (basically what we all have).
It's expensive to use jars all the time and I personally think not that healthy as it's processed food which is heated up to a really high temp so it will last ages in the jars before going off, which means it loses all the goodness during this process.
They're great for convienience, but the way I look upon it is that I wouldn't eat ready meals every day, twice a day

 

[Krystal]

yeah Kina good point about the ready meal thing, I wouldn't either. I eat all my food fresh!

I only have a fridge but it does have a tiny freezer compartment at the top so I might do what you do Kim.
So tell me.. I just boil lets say broccolii... carrot.. parsnip that sort of thing, mash it, freeze it in cubes and then move to freezer bags then on the morning just get them out to defrost naturally (ie not in microwave) ? Is that right?

Then I can try bananna but obviously that can be done fresh? right I think I'm gonna start.

How do you make sure they get balanced diets, I mean we have to have our 5 a day, what do you do to make sure baby eating varied diet?

sorry to sound so niave but I aint got a clue

 

[Rosieroo]

If you freeze lots of little ice cubes of veggies then you can just vary them to make sure they're getting variety, and as LO gets older you can add meat and bulk like pasta.

Annabel Karmel does some cool little pasta shapes that you can use from 7 months, I make a pasta sauce from a carton of passata, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 diced carrot, half onion, some grated cheese and basil, whizz it down in the food processor and then add freshly cooked pasta to a portion. As this recipe makes quite a lot you can freeze it in pots and then just take out a pot of it, defrost in the fridge and warm through in a saucepan with some cooked pasta.

You can try different combos of foods, some sound gross, but I know that my LOs loved avocado and banana mashed up (they're great btw as you can just peel and mash so good for on the move), and sweet potato and pear.

 

[Redshoes]

We used both, I would offer fresh fruit and for meals a jar, because otherwise Isaac wouldn't have had a varied diet, as we weren't eating very well.. Jarred food is perfectly fine, and if you research it, somewhat better than a lot of homemade food, which loses a lot of its nutrients etc when boiled. Isaac stopped eating them around 6months, now he just has what we have really, loves weetabix and pasta, I think just introducing lots of flavours and textures and as long as you and baby are happy, its fine

 

[rusks]

luke has both. i try and give him 1 homemade meal a day and then for tea he may have 1/2 jar. jars are far better than they used to be and its just easier for me to do it this way.

 

[mum&2girls]

jayde used to have jars but she never really liked them they got wasted so now i make my own ood for her and she loves it and she loves all her finger foods

 

[x-kirsty-x]

Ryan has nothing but jars, he won't eat the food that we eat even if its mushed right down. I'm spending a fortune on jars but he just wont have anything else. Fussy bugger that he is

He'll have sweet stuff like normal rice pudding and fromage frais but as for savoury, it's the jars or nothing at all

 

[Krystal]

thank y'all for replying.

Right ok so at the moment I am just giving him something on the morning.

Should I be starting to give him more? Like baby rice for brekkie then savoury for tea or something? god i'm thick aren't i. someone call social services perlease