It’s been a while since I’ve actually made baby food (my youngest is almost three!), but a co-worker of my husband’s was asking about this. I was just going to send him an email, but then I thought I might get around to it more quickly if I did a blog post about it.
Just so you know, in this post I’m not offering any advice about when you should start solid foods, when your baby is ready for particular kinds of solid foods, or any advice of that sort. I’m only sharing some ideas for avoiding the high cost of prepared baby food.
Generally speaking, I think purchased baby food is a very bad deal. The little containers might not seem that expensive (they were $.75-$1 when my kids were babies), but they contain very little food. So, the price per pound is outrageous when you compare it with regular food. For instance, you can buy an entire pound of bananas for $.50-$.60 in my area, and you’d have to hit a sale to buy even one little container of baby food bananas for that price. Similarly, you can buy a very large container of unsweetened applesauce for a few dollars, but the same amount of baby food applesauce would be far more expensive.
Probably my best advice is to look past the foods and beverages that are marketed specifically for babies, and try to find suitable alternatives that are meant for the general population. Here are some ways that I did just that.
Fruits and Vegetables
Back when I had my first baby, I put a fair amount of effort into making baby food…I froze cubes of food and came up with all sorts of exotic combinations for him. But with the advent of babies number 2, 3, and 4, I had to streamline things a bit. So, instead of making up batches of special baby food, I tried to look for regular foods that could be used for babies. For instance, bananas can be easily mashed up on demand, using a food processor, a baby food grinder, or a fork, depending on how smooth your baby’s bananas need to be.
Ripe avocados can be mashed just like bananas, and they’re a great early food to feed to your baby.
Also (thanks to my aunt for this suggestion!), plain unsweetened applesauce can be fed to most babies straight from the jar. The only difference between baby food applesauce and regular applesauce is that the baby food may be a little more finely processed. If this difference bothers you or your baby, you can just run the regular applesauce through your food processor.
With my first baby, I peeled, cooked, and processed raw fruits for him, but I found that this was actually just about as expensive as buying baby food. A cheaper and much easier alternative is to buy canned fruit. I drained and rinsed the fruit and ran it through my food processor until it reach the desired consistency. I know this seems like a less healthy option than the first, but honestly, by the time you peel and cook the raw fruit, it’s just as processed as the canned fruit is (and you’ve spent an awful lot of time and made a lot of mess!). The same process works with vegetables, although you’ll want to make sure you buy the kind without any salt.
If you have the time or inclination, you can pour the fruit or vegetable puree into ice cube trays, freeze them, and then remove the cubes to a Ziploc bag. Then the cubes can be defrosted as needed.
Baby Cereal
Baby cereal is, of course, more expensive than it needs to be. I didn’t actually end up feeding all that much cereal to my babies, but if I had, I’d have looked into making my own. This site has a good set of instructions on how to do just that.
Regular rice and oatmeal are very inexpensive foods, especially compared to the baby variety. For instance, a large canister of oatmeal can be had for about the same price of a small box of baby oatmeal.
Jarred Meals
Once your baby is ready to eat mixed foods (like the chicken dinners that are sold in jars), you can simply puree or mash whatever baby-appropriate food that you are cooking for yourself (obviously, you’re not going to want to mill up hot wings.). A mini food processor can be used, or you can use the old fashioned hand grinder.
Baby Snacks
There are all sorts of baby snack foods available now, and like most baby food, you don’t get much for your money. A very 
small box of baby crackers costs as much(or more than) a large box of normal crackers. And honestly, they’re really not all that different. Save yourself some money and feed your baby Cheerios or regular crackers instead.
Baby Juice
I’m of the opinion that juice isn’t really a nutritional necessity, so I’ve mostly saved money on baby juice by having my kids drink water once they’re weaned (before they were weaned, they didn’t really drink anything but breastmilk.) Water is nigh onto free, and getting your child into the habit of drinking water is such a great idea.
Kids love juice, though, so I did let my toddlers drink some. I always diluted it by 50%, though, and I didn’t buy baby juice. Plain, unsweetened, dye-free juice works every bit as well as baby juice and it’s way cheaper.
There are other sorts of specialized baby foods that I haven’t mentioned here (baby yogurt, for example, which is no better for your baby than plain yogurt), but you probably get the basic idea:
Most baby food is fancied-up regular food, and if you buy the regular food instead, you can save lots of money.
Megan says
I agree with all of this!!!
Did the difficult way with my first, I’m a lot more relaxed with my second, lol.
I would add that the silicone cupcake pans are awesome for freezing baby food. You can actually put a whole serving in one, and they pop out oh so easy once frozen.
Sadly, I wasn’t happy with the homemade baby cereal for my new eater though. Now he gets what we get, but the bitty baby food I made looked like glue
Kayla says
I’ve had mixed luck making homemade baby food. I was able to get the carrots and sweet potatoes to the right texture but then they were watery. I tried puréed bananas, blueberries, and butternut squash but apparently didn’t get them fine enough because my son gagged on them. Sigh. It’s frustrating after spending all the effort to save some money. He’s only 8 months so we’ll wait another couple weeks and try again. Until then I need to experiment with a combination of the food mill and blender to see what works best. And I’ll give him some store bought foods too.
Jessie@Jessie:Improved says
I’ve got a hilarious video of my daughter trying jarred peas for the first time – she makes the most outrageous face I’ve ever seen on a baby! In contrast, she absolutely loved the peas I made for her. I think making baby food was one of the easiest things I did. I would cube up and steam a pot full of sweet potatoes or carrots and run them through the food processor, among other things. To this day, sweet potatoes are one of her favorite foods.
Anna says
My boys didn’t like the jar baby food. They ate off our plates from day 1. What we ate, they ate.
Susan@Emperorp says
Thanks for linking to the site for making baby cereal. I made my own baby food in the past for my other children, except for cereal. Now when Sean is old enough I can make all his baby food. Still enjoying your archives as I nurse
Kristen says
@Battra-Well, now you’ll be all set when you do get married and have kids.
In times past, mothers breastfed their children for a lot longer…it’s practically free, age-appropriate, nutritious, and requires no special storage or preparation. lol And I think that parents did more of what I did-just mashing up real food.
There are oodles of unnecessary baby products out there, things that people managed without just fine for thousands of years. Somehow, though, the marketers have managed to convince the masses that these things are needs.
Battra92 says
I have no kids (heck, I’m not even married) but I found this interesting. My dad always loves to say “What did they do in the days of the old west” whenever a modern “convenience” food or product comes up. Of course for some answers it was “they died” but I do wonder how and what most people fed their infants 100 years ago.
Carol says
I agree with everthing stated above. My daughter fed packaged baby food to my grandson because it was convenient. As soon as my grandson figured out that we were eating too, he didn’t want baby food any more and would only eat what we eat. So we just mashed or cut up everything very small for him.
That left me with several jars/plastic packs of baby food. I used them up by adding the vegetables to spaghetti and other sauces. (I also used up a couple of small cans of V-8 that nobody would drink that way, but that’s another story ). The pureed fruit can be used in fruit breads or muffins or in smoothies. I never did by the little meal things or meat – they just looked too nasty for me.
sophia says
This is a great post, but it’s also kind of sad that we have to be reminded of how most “baby” foods are just regular foods with baby marketing. It’s like “hmmm, I’m buying this little tiny jar of peas, and if I read the label, they added sugar and preservative and salt and coloring… but it’s the best for babies because it’s in the baby food aisle!” when really, just take a can of peas and mash ’em up!
Kristen says
Emmer, I forgot to mention that. I do always dilute the juice I give to my babies and toddlers by 50%. And once my kids are toddlers, we usually have switched over to orange juice.
Overall, though, we go very light on the juice around here. Water makes up about 90% of our beverage intake, actually.
emmer says
you may find your pediatrician suggests diluting adult juices 25 to 50 % for babies. juices are quite sweet. perhaps more than is healthy, if they are a significant portion of baby’s diet. white grape juice in particular, and to a lesser extent apple juice don’t offer much nutrition, but do appeal to baby’s budding sweet tooth. look for unsweetened juices with minimal white grape or apple.
Amanda says
You are so right!! I bought the fancy packaged baby food for the first month of true solids with my son. I caught on soon after I realized he liked real peaches not the processed baby stuff with citric acid in it to preserve color.
I did make an investment. I found that 4 oz. Ball jars help with transporting homemade baby food. Unlike those other commercial containers they don’t leak and are easy to find at most food stores, craft stores, or where you can find canning supplies.
wendopolis says
I agree that commercial baby food is a bad idea. I admit to buying it for my first baby, but hey, I was a new mom and what did I know? Not much, I will admit. Homemade all the way now, baby!