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Making your own baby food reduces the energy and resources needed to manufacture baby food and also allows you to monitor the quality of food your baby eats, as well as save money.

How to make your own baby food

Making baby food at home is a relatively simple and quick procedure. Making big batches ahead of time and freezing them allows you to save time and build convenience into your baby's eating routine.

1. Choose the raw ingredients that you want to feed your baby. This may include grains, fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, and other foods as well. Make sure you consult your pediatrician before introducing your baby to a new food. There are certain ages at which it is appropriate to start introducing certain foods.
2. Put the prepared ingredients into a blender and blend until desired consistency is achieved.
3. You can freeze the leftover baby food in ice cube trays for up to three months.

Making your own baby food helps you go green because…

• It reduces the resources used for manufacturing, transporting, and producing pre-packaged baby food.
• It reduces the amount of waste, in the form of baby food packaging, that ends up in landfills or incinerators.
• If you use organic food to make your own baby food, you reduce your child's exposure to pesticides and minimize environmental exposure, as well.

There are four million babies born in the United States every year, making the eco-impacts of their eating habits, including agricultural and packaging waste, rather large. By the time they reach 12 months of age, each one will have eaten an average of 600 jars of baby food.[1] Over two million tons of food bottles and jars (including baby food jars) were discarded in 2005 with only 15 percent being recycled. The remaining 1.8 million tons were dumped in landfills or incinerated.[2]

But, while homemade baby food cuts down on garbage, organic homemade baby food goes one better since it prevents the environmental degradation from the production of common fruits, vegetables, and meat. Pesticides contain powerful toxic chemicals like organophosphates, which results in a dangerous spillover effect on non-targeted organisms, including humans, as well as the environment. According to the US Geological Survey, pesticides have been found in every stream and in 80 percent of freshwater fish in the United States.[3] Pesticides also decrease soil biodiversity by killing off many organisms and persist in the environment for years after use.

Twenty million American children five years old and under consume an average of eight types of pesticides per day. Children are at higher risk for pesticide exposure because their bodies are still developing and because they consume larger amounts of pesticide-laden food per body weight than adults. Exposure to pesticides has been shown to cause neurological, endocrine, reproductive, and developmental damage and disorders.[4]

Farmers who produce organic foods focus on the use of renewable resources and sustainable practices, including soil and water conservation. Organic food is produced without most conventional pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or sewage sludge, ionizing radiation, or bioengineering. Organic meats, dairy, poultry and eggs come from animals that were not administered growth hormone or antibiotics.

Controversies

The recent rise in organic food sales is being fueled by concern for the environment, followed by concern for health.[5] However, some experts criticize the preference for organic food, claiming it is actually detrimental to the environment. Norman Bourlag, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the "green revolution," argues that organic farming techniques produce lower crop yields than conventional methods and therefore require greater land use to produce an equivalent quantity of food. It has been similarly argued that the lower crop yields from organic farming require more energy per ton of food grown, increasing the carbon footprint of the food.[5]

Glossary

• organophosphates: Organophosphates are a type of organophosphorous compound. Their toxic nature has led to their use in pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and as nerve gas. The neurotoxic compounds irrerevisbly damage the nervous systems of organisms exposed and are one of the largest sources of poisonings.

External links

• Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Environmental Working Group - How 'Bout Them Apples
• US Environmental Protection Agency - Pesticides
• US Department of Agriculture - Soil Biodiversity