Baby Food Grinder

“Organic” on a label does not default to “healthier.”

“Organic foods are produced according to certain production standards. For crops, it means they were grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.[1] For animals, it means they were reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food

It depends how much you think the pesticide residue might be harmful.

Certainly jarred stuff is heavily processed, often watered down…organic or no, it is not made with a bottom line, not baby’s best interest, in mind.

If I didn’t have time to cook I would find one of the stores selling frozen, not jarred, baby food. (And do make use of your freezer. One organic broccoli head, carefully used, is not going to be more expensive than an equivalent amount of jarred veg.)

But. “Baby food” is so completely unnecessary for healthy, 6+mo babies, too. Eat well yourself and mash up what you eat with a fork — or Google “baby-led weaning” and look into that.

Some reading:

http://www.cspinet.org/reports/cheat1.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/
http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html

You mean they don’t sell Gerber at your store? All Gerber product comes from organic sources now and has for like 8 years.

The one clear advantage of making your own food is cost. It is no more healthy. Baby food is packaged the same day it is picked. The stuff at the grocery store is often weeks old. Baby food is tested for contaminants. You don’t have that option for in home testing. Organic food can also be contaminated with E.coli (They use manure for fertilizer and they now know that e.coli is not limited to surface contamination in vegetables). Unless you grow it yourself, there is no way to say whether one is healthier than the other.

The only foods I would steer clear of (and buy organic) are those that have the highest levels of pesticides. See list at link below.

Most of the world serves babies (6 months or older) whatever they are eating for dinner, just pureed. However, I would not give an infant food from a restaurant. Food poisoning and contamination by food workers is just too much of a risk. Take jarred baby food. Recent studies have shown that infants who get food poisoning or e.coli have a higher risk of long term gastrointestinal problems because (they believe) the illness interferes with the development of intestinal villi.

Edited to add: the Organic line was already being marketed. Gerber does not require that its farms for regular line be certified organic; only that they comply with Gerber’s requirements. For instance, farms can lose certification if the farm next door uses pesticides even though the Gerber farm does not. Gerber does test the produce, but doesn’t punish its farmers for things outside their control. The Organic line does require farm certification by outside authority.