288483 Wed Feb 13 16:04:32 -0800 2002 2 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1556749 Chowpup going on solids. I plan to start making squash and carrots and the like for him this week. I'd like to make more than just the tiny amounts he's going to eat at first. Any thoughts on freezing (and thawing), canning and cooling, etc.? And another question. Potatoes. German baby books mention mashed potatoes, the ones here seem to be talking about rice cereal, squash and carrots for starters. Do German speaking babies have different stomachs? I bet he would like mashed potatoes with expressed breastmilk. Wed Feb 13 16:04:32 -0800 2002 0 guglhupf 1 1556756 Mashed potatoes with expressed breastmilk was a favorite with my babies and lots of the babies I knew from my La Leche group. Most babies in my experience disdain rice cereal. German babies don't have different stomachs as far as I know, though there's probably something to be said for babies getting used to their mothers' diet through flavor compounds in breastmilk. The main reason for introducing foods simply and one at a time is to identify any allergies or sensitivities if they crop up. If the baby doesn't react to anything AND you have no significant family history of allergies you can do pureed combination table foods fairly early on. Freezing is great. Lots of mothers I know would freeze pureed foods in ice cube trays and then pop the squares out and put in freezer bags--a cube seems to be about the right amount. One thing--even if you don't always purchase organic fruits and vegetables for yourselves it is probably worth it to do it for your baby's foods. Consumer Reports did a review of pesticides in homemade and commercial baby foods a while back and what they found was that unless you made baby food out of organic produce there were far higher pesticide levels in the homemade food than in commercial baby food jars. Yum. Wed Feb 13 17:32:59 -0800 2002 1556749 0 Wendy Leonard 1 1557017 Consider buying one of those mini food grinders. I ground the food right at the table, so my children got whatever we were eating! I rarely made anything special for them, and I never bought baby food. As long as the food you eat yourself is good! And if the baby doesn't like dinner that much that night, well he'll just nurse a little longer! Sun Feb 17 15:33:19 -0800 2002 1556749 0 cjb