Green Baby Series 1 of 5-First Foods

Welcome to my Green Baby Series!  In an attempt to hit more facets of life, I have asked my long time friend, and college roommate, Laura, to provide content for the series.  She'll help us learn about greener baby foods/processes, cloth diapers and more!  This series will occur once a week for 5 weeks.
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Making your own baby food is one of the easiest and most practical ways to "go green". It greatly reduces waste and allows you to support local agriculture, and it is cheaper and fosters healthy eating at the earliest age. Many parents assume feeding babies and toddlers consists of jarred fruits and veggies, boxed cereal, mac and cheese, little cups of canned fruit saturated in sugar syrup, and a number of other salty, sugary, individually packaged snacks. I am not sure when we got away from simply feeding our kids the same things we eat, just mashed or cut to their level, but doing so is healthier for them and for the environment.  Photo Right: Laura and husband Jeff and 2 boys Ben & Asher.

Easy to Do

Consider pureed banana, one of a baby's first foods. It surprises me that parents would spend around $0.50 for one little jar of processed banana (organic is even more expensive) rather than buy a whole organic banana for about $0.35 and mash it with a fork in about 20 seconds, getting even more fruit in the process. I definitely get that jarred baby food is convenient for on the go, when traveling, or the times when you literally don't have even 20 seconds, but I think a lot of parents don't even consider preparing the natural, whole version of foods when they do have the chance.
OrganicAngel's 2 cents:  I witnessed Laura mashing a banana like this for Ben when he was very young.  It was THE most common sense and obvious thing to feed him at that age!  No plastic or glass jar and no paper needed for the label.