do i NEED to heat baby meals once they thawed ?

[topov]

I've been making and freezing baby meals/cubes/pots of stewed-fruit-only, stewed-veg-only and meat+veg stew; (all made on the hob, pureed then cooled and frozen);
and I'm having trouble finding an answer to the following questions:

1. Once I've taken the food from the freezer and let it thaw

• do I need to fully heat it (and let it cool) before feeding to our 7mo ? i.e. is it necessary for food safety reasons? or is heating just done so that the food is warm?

2. Or - since he happily eats cool/room-temp food, can I just feed it to him once it's thawed, without heating?
   Is this unsafe? Or is it just like eating a melted ice-lolly or sorbet?

3. Must I thaw the food in the fridge? Or is it ok to let the frozen pot thaw out at room temp e.g. in a bag in buggy while we're out and about during the morning.

I've read discussions about how to heat, or whether to reheat unused portions, but not whether heating is actually necessary (maybe because everyone but me knows that it is??)

I'll stop rambling now :-) - it's a simple question really - I'd appreciate your views.
Thanks - topov

Assuming the food was cooked before being frozen, I don't think there's any reason it needs to be heated once it's thawed.

I think I would defrost meat in the fridge, but I'm sure defrosting fruit and veg at room temperature would be fine as long as it's eaten fairly soon after being thawed.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert, but that's probably what I would do for my own baby.

I have forgotten the details of why, as I was doing all this a year ago, but my memory was that you should re-heat thawed food before serving, in order to kill bacteria which will have been activated when the food is thawed. This is certainly what I did.

Anything with meat in DEFINITELY must be thawed slowly, then heated hot then allowed to cool down, for bacteria-killing reasons.

I always did this for all frozen food when mine were babies, but cannot confirm how necessary it is. Actually I still do this with anything frozen: soups or stews or fruit purees.

I think you'd get away with fruit purees, but personally i'd heat anything else. I think the bacteria get killed by freezing and then by heating, but in the thawing process the bacteria can breed so you need to take it above a certain temp and then use it reasonably quickly.

I stand corrected.

But (having thought about it for a few minutes), if you defrost it in the refrigerator, surely it's too cold for the bacteria. Wouldn't it be OK to freeze something, thaw it in the fridge and then eat it straight from the fridge without heating? I thought it was only at room temperature that there was a bacteria problem.

I rarely heated defrosted food through as we're always told to do - unless I had been disorganised and hadn't prepared food in advance, in which case it would be 'ice'-cubes in a pan with a little water and boil hard, followed by making myself dizzy puffing on the food to cool it enough to feed the screaming infant.

I would take the following day's food out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge in a tub with a lid, and generally serve it either straight from the fridge or at room temperature. If I was going out for the day, I would take the food frozen and it would have defrosted by lunchtime.

Ds was never ill from this, dd had gastro once at 9m but as she was eating the same food as ds and he wasn't in the least bit ill, I doubt that it was the food. More likely something she picked up off the ground and put in her mouth.

Anyway, I went totally against the official advice, have no regrets, and would do it that way again. But then I also put my babies to sleep on their tummies!

I have never reheated DD's homemade frozen food after thawing.Luckily she has never liked warm food or milk,even from being tiny.

I have thawed stuff out in the bag whilst we have been out.DD is 12 months now & has never had an upset stomach.(touch wood).

Generally I don't reheat thawed food as ds doesn't like it warm for some reason. Ds is nearly 10m and hasn't had an upset tummy yet. I also do as prettycandles does when I've forgotten to defrost. I have a food scientist friend so I'll ask her if I remember.

Interestingly, right now I am defrosting cooked and peeled prawns in the fridge, now I wouldn't heat them up and cool them down before I put them in a salad. Perhaps my kitchen is a tummy bug waiting to happen? There must be a definitive answer on this one. [pondering and puzzled emoticon]

Arghhh! It never even crossed my mind to worry abou this - that is just what I do.

I either defrost overnight or m-wave until just melted - certainly not hot enough to be bug killing.... await further responses...

yeah, not sure myself now either...help someone?

Once frozen and defrosted I would definitely heat (not warm) all food well and let it cool for babies - fridges can be a breeding ground for food poisoning. (Also cover, cool and freeze food as soon as possible after cooking.).
What really 'hurts' at this stage is if you get a power cut and the whole freezer defrosts after days of cooking!
Best of luck.

Hmm - glad to see that the range of differing views mirrors what's been whirring round my head.

Sorry if I've got some of you worried now!

Portree - I'd be v interested in what your food scientist friend says about all this.

(although on second thought - maybe I don't want to know the consequences of what I've been doing so far ;-)

I only really worried about thoroughly reheating stuff containing meat. The rest I'd serve at room temperature which usually still meant putting it in microwave to defrost as I'd rarely have allowed enough time to do it naturally or adding boiling water to it.