“Homemade food” does not mean being bound to the kitchen after a tiring day. 

You just need a morning – preferably over the weekend, in order to go to the market to shop for fruit and vegetables – to prepare your jars of baby food for the week ahead. A bit of creativity and some food safety rules will allow you to easily get there. Meeting up with friends at the market, listening to music or enjoying a drink with dad while cooking will soon be part of your lifestyle.

 

Street markets are a great opportunity to buy fruit and vegetables in season from local farmers, along with fresh eggs, poultry, or fish at good value for money. You can do the rest of our shopping at the supermarket and get dairy products, butter, flour, sugar or honey, etc.

 

It is possible to prepare purées, compotes, and other meals at the same time thanks to a baby food maker, steam cooking big capacities of vegetables, fruits, meats... as well as blending and keeping fresh baby’s food for a week. 

 

To prepare and store jars for the week ahead, you’ll need small plastic containers with lids (baby bowls, which contain silicone). They have the advantage of being able to preserve food in the fridge or freezer and then they warm up directly during steam cooking, so they can be served straight to your baby.

 

Small zipper bags are great to freeze fruit and vegetables that have been washed and cut, as they can be stacked on top of each other and so take up less space if you have a small freezer compartment. 

 

Vegetable or fruit purées can stay in the fridge for up to 2 to 3 days. For jars of homemade food with animal protein such as fish or meat, it is best to store it for a maximum of 24 hours. Regardless of how long the food is stored for, it is best to trust your nose and, if in doubt, taste the food before giving it to the baby. To store food for more than 2 or 3 days, you can freeze it and this applies to any kind of food (even dairy products). Freezing food has the benefit of preserving vitamins and color.

 

Flavors are preserved if homemade food is stored in jars. They allow you to preserve the distinctive flavors of the various foods they contain, unlike industrially-made food, which contains substances that may somewhat change the taste of food.