Sharing tips on good food

[Rara]

Anyone want to help put together tips on finding good, wholesome foods from the various shops/supermarkets? I've been reading "The food our children eat" and found it v interesting but also horrifying how much crap is passed off as "healthy" kids' food.
Very much agree with author's beliefs that our children should eat modified versions of what we eat and get them into good habits from babies.

Read on another thread about organic versions of cheerios and stuff like this. Am interested in what other parents have found in the way of food with no added sugar/salt, etc and also what has gone down well with their babies/toddlers (my dd is nearly 8m and starting more adventurous stuff and finger food etc.) Would be really interested in other Mumsnetters have to say...

It took me ages to find an organic breakfast cereal without added sugar or wheat. Finally found a boots own brand organic banana porridge today - buy one get one free! - so will try it on ds (5 mnths) tommorrow. I would like to magimix my own organic oats up, but don't know whether to cook the porridge up afterwards or just add formula and serve - surely it will taste raw if I do this? Another tip was reconstituting organic dried apricots then cooking and pureeing them - ds absolutely adores this mixed with apple or pear. It works out a lot cheaper than fresh organic fruit and can add variety. I'm going to try something more exotic next!

Rara - A book you might find useful is What should I feed my baby by Suzannah Olivier.
My kids have no added sugar or salt when I have anything to do about it ! I cook most of their food and I always read labels... once you get use to it it's very quick. You learn to de-code.
Manna - aren't Organix wheat free ????

Just one quick warning.... dried apricots is VERY sweet so you want to dilute it as if you are trying to keep the swet tooth away... this won't do !

Second Pupuces recommendation on that book, very useful. Rara, I am with you on this: lots of ready made food aimed at kids is nothing more than sugar and additives. Yoghurts are a good example: read the labels on most and the main ingredient is sugar.

My ds is veggie and so eats lots of fruit and vegetables and very little processed food since I don't generally buy it (poor love, he gets so excited on the odd occassion I have biscuits or something in the house

It means I miss out most of the aisles in the supermarket since many are stuffed with junk and ready meals. I also liked a vegetarian baby and toddler cook book by Carol Timperlely and found it useful from weaning on. I'm not someone who spends hours lovingly cooking gourmet meals for ds BTW, but he does eat well and healthily and I do object to the way food aimed at kids is marketed as if it's healthy when so often it's not!

Quick list of healthy, quick foods he gets, although not all suitable for your dds age, can't remember what you can give when, sorry:

scrambled/boiled eggs (with orange juice for iron absorption)
baked beans
corn on the cob
Pasta with beefless bolognase from aforementioned book
Mango
Apricots/strawberries
carrots/broccoli (sp?)
cashew/pistachio nuts (although not til he was 2 I think)
peanut butter
Marmite
pitta bread with cheese
grapes
yoghurt
Apricots
Raisins

and of course, the odd packet of crisps/chocolate sweets, I'm not a complete bitch!

Having a child of nearly 2 and depressed with the variety of food available for my daughter, myself and a friend decided to set up our own organic babyfood business in Somerset.We sell a wonderful variety of meals for children aged between 4 mnths to 2 years.
All the food is cooked using only organic produce with no added sugar or salt.We have won soil association certification, so why not take a look at what we do at www.bathorganicbabyfood.co.uk

truuulyscrumptious - that is very interesting. I was thinking about doing exactly the same thing but with fresh foods supplied to local deli's - how is it working for you ?

www - I really liked that Carol Timperley book too, but found Susanna Olivier a bit 'preachy'. Other books that have been very useful are 'What our children eat' by ? Sorry cant remember, and the kids bit at the back of Nigella's How to Eat.

manna, I used to do exactly that with porridge oats. 'Blended' organic porridge oats in the blender/magimix, grated an apple very finely, mixed it in with the ground oats and soaked it overnight with breastmilk/formula/cows (depending on age). Soaking the oats softens them to a lovely creamy consistency and you can serve it straight from the fridge without cooking. Benefits of this is that you can prepare bfast the night before and just whack it out, also you get TONS of ground oats from a health food sized bag of porridge oats.

hmmm, don't read my comments on previous thread truulyscrumptious!

thanks for the tip pupuce. When you say dilute the apricot, what with? A sourer tasting fruit, a ceral, water?

I would have said water... also read my post under baked beans

My son likes our food much better than babyfood - he adores our pureed lasagne and shepherds pie (organic meat, unsalted but with normal garlic/herbs etc). Also give him risotto and fish pie. He's 7/1/2 months. He also looks VERY longingly when I have a glass of wine and desperately tries to reach for it, but think it's a bit early for that yet!

aloha, personally I think that is the best and ultimately the healthiest way to feed your baby - to give them what you eat (as long as its pretty healthy to start with!). I think babies love garlic, dd loved pesto from a very early age.

I have dipped my little finger in champagne and wine to let dd try. She loves it ! Only done once or twice btw before anyone calls the NSPCC

My dd also loves interesting food. Anything with garlic, she has a very sophisticated diet, it's quite amusing.

My DS loves garlic too, Nigella recommends roasting some and then mashing it into baked potatoes, this goes down a treat. DS' favourite tipple is beer! Obviously we don't let him drink whole bottles of it but have caught him on occasion trying to get the dregs out of an empty bottle.

I do however know someone who was having a night in with one of her friends and didn't notice that her DS (aged about 2 1/2) at the time had gotten hold of a full glass of red wine and was sitting very quietly drinking it. The first anyone knew about it he was falling about the floor and giggling, apparently he had quite a hangover the next morning!

My kids fave dinner is "tubey" (fusilli) pasta, mixed with chopped grilled bacon, parmesan cheese, garlic olive oil, chopped cooked brocolli, and a bit of parsley. The big one,4, likes to help mix it all. Takes 15 mins max. Mummy and Daddy quite like it too!!
You can get almost all of these organicaly.

Lots of great suggestions which I will be trying out, so thank you. Any other veggie mums: can you give babies soya mince? If so, at what age? I know tofu is OK but we often eat veggie shephards pies and bolog made from the Realeat frozen mince - was wondering whether dd could partake? Is it a bit too rich?

Yes, in our part of the country sheep are "harded", hence my atrocious spelling of shepherd!!!

My dd loves fruity chicken - chicken cooked with aprictos, apples, parsnip, carrot, potato and broccoli (fry chicken in butter with apricots and steam or lightly boil the rest).

She also loves pasta with bacon, courgette, tomato and garlic. I use tinned tomatoes for this.

For things like salmon and cod, try mixing them with sweet potato or something else she likes a lot. DD loves fish now but wasn't keen when I first gave it to her a couple of months ago (she's 8 months too)

Also if we are having a roast or casserole I always puree some for DD (before seasoning) she loves this.

Good finger foods I've found are cucumber (skinned), cooked carrot, breadsticks (organix do these), buttered toast, avocado, little thin strips of chicken, peeled grapes and banana

Sorry but what is the big deal on feeding kids - my two are now 8 and 5 and they have always had just what we have but initially pureed and then finely chopped, started introducing cows milk at six months with breakfast cereal etc. (used follow-up milk for bottles only). The only packet food I bought for either of them was a baby porridge and the occasional but rare jar of food for outings etc. but apart from that I have never purchased baby juice, baby bread sticks, rusks etc. etc. Both of them have suffered slightly with eczema but I have not stopped dairy products and both have grown out of it. I recall that they would have their share of curry and rice at about six months, naan bread is a good finger food!! I suppose I was careful with added sugar & salt but only because we are with our food too.

I would love for our son to eat more of what we eat but I don't really understand how people achieve this. He goes to bed at 7.30pm having had his evening meal at around 5.45pm. We then eat at around 8.30pm.

Obviously if I am doing something like pasta in a tomato sauce which can happily sit for a long time, I can just serve his up earlier. But most of our food has to be "cooked to order" so to speak so short of us all eating at an inconvenient (for us) time, it is a bit difficult. On Sundays, we do try and have a hot meal at lunch so we can all eat together but otherwise, until he starts going to bed later, we don't find ourselves enjoying a family meal very often.

I suppose dp and I have modified what we eat slightly so that it can be things that will 'keep' until the next day for dd's lunch - things like bolognaise, shepherds pie, pasta sauce. Tonight we are having pasta shells with sauce made from broccoli, garlic and cream with some garlic bread (we like garlic!). I'll keep some sauce aside and cook some pasta for dd's lunch tomorrow, and cut off a couple of bits of garlic bread before I cook it tonight. We had a roast chicken at the weekend, its easy to keep some of that aside (roast veggies are even more delicious after they've been reheated in the microwave - sorry, pupuce!)

Obviously if we are having a full-on Nigella or Jamie fest I don't bother keeping some for dd but I do try whenever possible as it makes life a lot easier!

Bells, I know what you mean. I have a mental picture of every other family sitting down together to an evening meal, whereas ds has his food at 5pm and DH and I eat much later (the main reason being DH doesn't get home from work until nearly 9). I feel like I'm letting ds down in some way but not eating as a family unit, but he has had his mealtime routine set for a long time and I don't think I could physically manage a large meal at that time anyway (I do sit with him while he is eating, having a piece of toast or something, so he isn't eating alone).

Enid, I do a similar thing; when I cook a meal I usually make a larger batch and that will be ds's evening meal for the next 2 days and freeze some for another time (but it can be pretty boring for dh as ds's tastes are quite limited!)

Jaybee - the whole point of the thread is to find out good ways of feeding our kids the same as us but in a modified way (eg as few additives as poss, no added salt/sugar) The reason I began looking into this was when I began feeding dd so-called "baby" yoghurts - organic ones at that - and then found out how much sugar goes into them so now give natural yog with fruit etc. I totally agree with not pandering to kids as if they're a separate life form, but it's got me wondering how much of my so-called healthy veggie diet is chocful of all the nasties I want to avoid giving dd.

I found a brand of jam in my local Sainsbury's called Gabry - it's no sugar, just very dense pureed fruit, and my son loves it on live greek yoghurt for pudding or with his breakfast cereal - and so do I. It's sweet, yes, but I don't think that's too awful - I like sweet things too but still eat vegetables. I am interested by the curry idea Jaybee - what curry was that? Not a vindaloo, I trust.

Obviously, the times the kids eat were, at first, alot earlier than our meal times but I used to put a bit aside for them and chop/puree whatever ready for the next day. When they were very small I used to keep a selection of bagged up ice cubes of various veggies and eventually meats in the freezer so I could either add these to something that we had eaten or make up slightly different meals if our meals were not suitable. I found this way easy to mix and match meals and expand them as their appetite (sp?) needed it. My gripe is when parents can't eat here or go there because there is nothing their kids will eat - and I know several parents and kids like this!!!

Jodee don't feel bad about not having a family meal all the time. It's not possible. Can't you have lunch with DS and make special family meals together like at the weekends - that way he does get to eat with both of you ?