The Many Problems with Commercial Baby Foods

As a parent you want to give your baby the very best that you can. You think through every decision of their little life, and you want to do the best that you can to nurture them. A big part of this process when you are raising a baby is to fulfill their feeding needs in the healthiest way possible. Though many parents turn to commercial baby foods, this may not necessarily be what’s right for your little one.

Though something may be convenient within your lifestyle, you have to evaluate if it’s truly the best option. Sure parents have been buying baby food for years, and they never even gave a second thought to it. These days it may seem like with all the many options out there for baby food, that there must be one that is fit for your little one. Though there are some that are healthier than others, across the board these may not present the best feeding options to give your baby everything that they need.

You will hear it time and time again that making your own baby food is the way to go. So what’s the real problem with commercial baby foods? Why do they fall short in the way of giving your baby what it really needs? Is making your own baby food that significantly better? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that store bought foods for babies may not really be the best choice after all.

They are often void of any real nutritional value: When baby food is made commercially in a factory it is not made with the same care as if you made it in home. When you cook some of these fruits and vegetables for an extended period of time, as you would with these purees, then you lose much of the nutrients. So though you might think that jar of baby food is chock full of vitamins and minerals that your baby needs, much of them may have been lost during the cooking process.

Many have fillers or other ingredients that don’t give the baby what it needs: You want to believe that it’s just the fruit or vegetable at the heart of the baby food, but there are often fillers involved in the creation of these foods. Not only that but if you don’t buy organic, then the produce may have been treated with pesticides or other preservatives. It’s not worth it to take the chance, so simply make the switch to homemade baby foods and you know that you’re getting precisely what you want your baby to have.

Focusing on these foods may take the baby away from the necessity of breast or bottle feeding: Many commercial baby foods are marketed to be given to babies as young as four months. The problem is that when many parents are introducing baby foods, this is at a time where the baby really needs much emphasis on breast or bottle milk. So though there is a place for baby food, giving it too early or too often can lead to the baby not getting enough breast milk or formula, which is where their main nutrition comes from.

They are much more based on convenience than giving baby proper nutrients: It’s very easy for parents to pick up containers of baby food when they run to the grocery store. The problem overall with many commercial baby foods is that they are based purely on this convenience as opposed to meeting the baby’s nutritional needs. So if you are aiming to give your baby what they really need, then making your own and freezing it is a much better way to go in the future.