Four things to consider about baby food

What to feed your baby feels for many people like a minefield. Photo / Thinkstock

Not so long ago, baby food came in one texture-mush. It may have been made at home, with a mouli or blender, or if it was bought ready-made it was plucked from the baby food aisle at the supermarket and not too many folks stared too long and hard at the list of ingredients.

Today, as we know, analysing every aspect of our diets to the Nth degree is just how we roll, and increasingly that translates into parents doing the same on behalf of their dear little cherubs. Yes, as fast as kale is being replaced by kaniwa on the superfood front, the new wisdom on what, and how, is best for baby to eat is changing with the winds.

What to feed your baby feels for many people like a minefield, so here we've outlined, without bias, just a few of the current issues around baby food.

1. The mush stops here

One of the most noticeable trends in food for babes over the past decade has been what's known as 'baby-led weaning'. In a nutshell this idea purports that babies inherently know how much, and what types of food, they need to eat to thrive, and that months of mush only hinders the development of both the gag-reflex, and the 'when to stop eating' instinct.

Like any theory, baby-led weaning is adopted and adapted differently depending on the family's wants and needs. To some, it means their baby stays exclusively on the breast until around 12-months-old, when they can then pretty much eat with the rest of the family. To others, it might mean offering finger foods like soft steamed broccoli heads or a whole banana from six-months, as much for a baby to play with and get accustomed to as to get calories from-while also dabbling the fill-em-up mashes and purees.

Babies from 6 months old can be weaned on to whole bananas or soft steamed broccoli heads. Photo / 123RF

2. Provenance, if you please

There are those out there who wouldn't touch a non-organic, GMO-ridden kernel of corn with a beanpole. And of course, they demand the same for their babes. The growth in organic baby foods has been huge over the past decade, and some of the big brands offer an organic range right alongside their non-organic option. Aside from the use of pesticides, the ethical and sustainable contents of baby food is becoming more of a focus.

We're starting to see certain brands specify free-range meats used, and sustainably caught fish, even down to the specific regions or farms it comes from.

For a good example of source-specific baby food, check out NZ brands Green Monkey and Little Angels, whose produce is all grown/raised/fished in NZ.

Green Monkey organic baby food. Photo / Facebook.com/Green Monkey

3. Gentle does it

At home, parents might prepare enough food for a few meals for their baby, unless we're talking the overachievers, who you'll find cooking up weeks' worth, freezing it all in ice cube trays before transferring those nifty little cubes sealed pouches (or forgetting to, if you're me, then remembering when you go to get ice and there is none...). In any case, it's a gentle, simple process, involving fresh produce prepared by hand with minimal ingredients and equipment.

When you look at baby food sold off the shelf in the supermarket, it will either be in a pouch or a jar, and in order to make the contents shelf stable it has been through either high-heat or pressure processing. Some believe such processes deplete some of the nutrients in the food - it's a contested notion, however, that doesn't seem to have been either proved or disproved satisfactorily. Another claim is that heat and pressure deplete the flavours of the food - now here's a hypothesis you could put to the test yourself with a blindfold!

Check out the Little Angels range, it's snap-frozen in cubes so you can portion it out depending on your little one's appetite. Photo / Facebook.com/Little Angels - Pure Baby Food

Many of the big brand baby foods will also contain additives, thickeners, and in some cases, rather a lot of flour, sugar, and an excess of water - all things you won't find yourself throwing much, or any of, in your homemade baby fare. So because you yourself don't eat solely shelf-stable foods, you probably don't want your baby to either. But, we live in a real world where we tend to be busy and on a tight budget, and having a few jars of baby food in your pantry, with no expiry date looming over them, is incredibly handy.

If you're after a bought option that's prepared the same as you would do at home, check out the Little Angels range, it's snap-frozen in cubes so you can portion it out depending on your little one's appetite.

4. Nutty wisdom

The question of food allergies is a hot topic, with the number of babies and children displaying allergy symptoms on the up and up (quadrupling, in the US, since 2008). Until quite recently, official advice had been to hold off introducing foods like peanuts and shellfish until age one or older. However recent research at Kings' College London involving 628 babies who were at high risk of developing a peanut allergy showed that early exposure to peanut-based foods dramatically cut their sensitivity. This is certainly something to keep in mind, and discuss with a health professional to see how you can safely try to reduce your baby's allergy risk.

- nzherald.co.nz