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Every mother wants to make nutritious food for their munchkin. But there are limited choices in baby food to try variety due to the no sugar, no salt rule. Don’t worry!! There are plenty of ways to make baby food yummy and nutritious.
I used to always sneak in a fruit or veggie in my son’s food without his knowledge. It all started in his babyhood when I used to try blending a variety of veggies and fruits to create tasty yet nutritious meals for him.
10 Amazing Ways to make Baby Food More Nutritious and Healthy:
1. Steaming
Steaming is preferred over boiling veggies and fruits for babies. Boiling causes loss of water soluble vitamins during cooking and hence loss of nutritional value of the food.
2. Baking
Baking helps retain the nutritive value of food and babies can easily digest baked food. Deep fried foods are absolutely discouraged for babies. However to an extent roasting is permitted as it does not degrade the food value as deep frying does.
3. Jaggery
For babies upto one year adding sugar to food is discouraged. This is because the sugar undergoes lot of chemical process to attain the color and shape and the chemicals used can have an adverse effect on the babies.
Jaggery is one of the safest nutritious natural sweetner for babies.
Benefits of Jaggery:
- It helps in digestion.
- It purifies blood.
- Increases the production of red blood cells.
- It is an excellent source of energy, as it is absorbed slowly.
- Jaggery is rich in antioxidants, selenium and minerals.
- It helps to boost immunity.
4. Dates
Dates syrup can also be used to sweeten baby food.
Benefits of Dates:
- It is rich in minerals and helps in baby’s growth.
- They have high fiber content and helps relieve constipation.
- They are good source of Calcium.
- Like jaggery, they are energy boosters.
5. Dry fruits/ powder
After 8 months of age, dry fruits can be given if there is no family history of allergies. Always follow the 3 day rule before introducing the dry fruits.
Dry fruits like cashews, almonds, pistachios can be dry roasted and ground in a mixer. A pinch of powder can be added in any of the baby food to make it more nutritious.
6. Vegetable Stock
Vegetable stock is another excellent method to incorporate all the vegetables in the babies food. The stock can be added while cooking purees, soups, khichdi, porridge etc.
7. Ghee
A teaspoon of desi ghee makes the food fulfilling and nutritious.
Benefits of Ghee:
- It is immune system booster.
- Helps prevent cough and cold.
- It helps in development of strong bones and teeth.
- A teaspoon daily takes care of the vitamin need for the babies.
- It can be given safely to babies with lactose intolerance.
8. Oils
Babies food can be enriched by cooking with oils like virgin coconut oil, virgin olive oil and till oil.
9. Green leafy vegetables
Green leafy vegetables can be added to baby food as much as possible. I always add 2 or 3 leaves of palak, spinach or any bhaji in khichdi or in purees
10. Spices
Adding Spices to baby food not only enhances the flavor but also adds to the nutrition of the food. Some of the spices that can be added to baby food are jeera, pepper and cinnamon.
Benefits of Spices:
- Jeera are rich in vitamin C and help fight cold and cough.
- Jeera is rich in iron and helps combat anemia
- Jeera acts as a good antioxidant.
- Jeera enhances the appetite and helps digestion for babies.
- Pepper is very good antibacterial agent.
- Pepper is rich in manganese, iron and vitamins.
- Pepper helps in easy digestion when added to food.
- Cinnamon is one of the richest source of manganese and helps in bone, muscle growth.
- Cinnamon has antibacterial and anti fungal qualities and adding cinnamon to babies food help ward off cold and cough.
Hope this article was useful. If you have any suggestions for making baby food more nutritious, do let us know.
Author Bio:
Hi! I am Dr Hemapriya aka Doctor Mommy. A family physician by profession, I quit my practice to take care of my 2 Little Moppets ages 5 and 6 months. But the passion to spread knowledge and ideas about health, nutrition and parenting, remained. That is when I decided to rekindle my love for writing and started my blog MyLittleMoppet.
My blog is all about healthy choices in parenting without all the preaching. When not making super healthy foods for my munchkins, I like to watch movies on RomedyNow (a diehard romantic at heart).
Come over at our facebook page My Little Moppet and to subscribe my updates .
Happy Parenting !!
