Food for Thought

*This post probably won't interest many, but for the few moms out there who read this and are curious about the food they're feeding their little munchkins, I think it's important to share this information. When I told a few friends about my discoveries, they were shocked. Hope this helps someone else out, too!*

Baby food should be simple, right?! Mash up some bananas and feed it to baby. So it seems.

I've been a food label reader for a while. My hobby revved up back when Maizey was a puppy and I learned about the dog food industry. If you haven't read your dog's food label recently, you should. Then look up the ingredients and it will probably make you think twice about what you're feeding your best friend.

Anyway, when Cam was five months old and refused to eat my homemade purees that I made for him, I had to resort to packaged baby food because he liked the smooth and creamy texture better. I immediately went for the organic stuff and quickly realized how expensive baby food is! At that point, I was just happy Cam was eating food, so buying jarred fruits and veggies didn't bother me so much. Not until I was in the baby aisle picking out some food for him a few months ago and happened to see a new Gerber baby food label. It looked like this:

It said "Smart", "Organic," and "DHA" so I thought, "great!" DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that is found in breast milk and helps brain and eye development in babies. It's been regarded as an important nutrient for babies throughout infancy to foster proper development, so I immediately thought it was a brilliant idea to put it in baby food (rather than solely in formula).

Then I read the ingredients list:

Yup, tuna oil. Tuna is source of DHA found in this baby food. If you continue reading, you'd also see there is gelatin listed as an ingredient. At first, I was shocked because I did not want to be feeding Cam tuna -- with my history of allergies, I've been super careful about introducing one food to him at a time to ensure he doesn't have a bad reaction. Giving tuna to a five month old didn't seem smart. There's a reason pregnant women are cautioned about eating too much tuna during their nine month ordeal -- mercury levels. While mercury poisoning is rare, it's still a real problem and I cringe to think about the babies who are eating jar after jar of this baby food and their parents have no idea what's inside.

After about a month of eating jarred foods, I tried giving Cam some of my homemade stuff again and now he'll eat it all up with a smile on his face. It's ridiculously cheaper, relatively easy, and I actually have fun making him food. I use my regular Cuisinart food processor and freeze portioned size amounts of the food to be defrosted as he wants it. I like having the control over what goes into the food and how chunky the consistency is.

Interestingly, I learned after doing some research that not all fruits and vegetables are greatly affected by pesticides. It makes sense if you think about it -- you don't eat the peel of a banana, so the chance of you ingesting harmful pesticides from eating a fruit that has an inedible shell are slimmer. When I told a friend that she didn't need to be buying everything organic, she was so happy she almost couldn't believe it! Here's a website with helpful information about which fruits and veggies you should buy organic all the time (they are also known as The Dirty Dozen so you can Google that any time if you forget)! I always buy my meat and dairy organically, but now I feel like I have a little leeway with my produce, and it has made a huge difference in the pocketbook.

Finally, I want to bring another label to the attention of my mommy friends who are feeding yogurt to their babies. Cam ate his first bites of greek yogurt yesterday and loved it! (He made a sour puss face at first, but then liked it a lot). I decided to go with plain greek yogurt because of this label I read on the Yo Baby Yogurt I was eyeing in the grocery store:

22 grams of sugar!! The second ingredient listed on the Yo Baby label was sugar. Second ingredient! I couldn't even begin to fathom Cam's energy level after a container of this stuff. So I passed it up, went for the plain greek yogurt and when we got home, I mixed in some whole banana and made my own fruit yogurt. Made me feel a lot better about what was going into his mouth.

Hope I've inspired some of you to check out what you're putting on the table or dog food bowl.