Confused about heating baby's food

[HensMum]

I've been weaning my nearly 7 month old for about a month but I'm confused about how to heat his food.
What I've been doing is preparing batches of stuff, freezing it, then taking it out of the freezer on the day I want to use it, defrosting in the fridge and warming slightly in the microwave (to room temp). If it's not quite defrosted, I'll give it longer in the microwave.
My question is - should I be heating it till it is red hot and then cooling it to serving temperature?
What about stuff that I cook and put in the fridge immediately?

I'm aware that I'm probably over-thinking things, but I tend to be quite slap-dash with my own food prep (best before dates mean nothing to me - if it's not furry, I'll eat it!) but I'm aware that I should be a bit more careful with my baby's food. Just not sure how careful...

good question. I have no idea. I think I did the same as you - but maybe that's wrong.

I usually heat about 30sec on the microwave - both for food that was frozen and defrosted OR straight off the cooker and put in fridge. So, in a nutshell, to slightly above room temperature - warm.

I never feel comfortable about heating food too hot as I think the plastic and radiation must have some effects ont he food. Even if they don't, I'm convinced that heating too much will affect the nutrients and all.

but what about meat for example, shouldn't that be re-heated so that it is properly hot-hot to kill bacteria, iyswim?

but what about meat for example, shouldn't that be re-heated so that it is properly hot-hot to kill bacteria, iyswim?

oops

I googled "reheating baby food" and found on various sites:
"When reheating baby food, make sure it is piping hot throughout (you should be able to see steam coming out) and then let it cool down before you give it to your baby."

Oops! I've been poisoning my poor baby! Having said that, he's been fine, so I think I'll probably add another 10sec to my usual heating time. But really, can't quite afford the luxury of time to heat piping hot and cool down when DS is rolling hot tears down his chubby cheeks screaming for food!

Thanks Phono, that's a good tip! x

I always heated to piping hot then let it cool to eating temperature. It is what you are always told to do for ready meals, etc so I figured the same would be true for food you have frozen yourself

i used to do the frozen bowl thing, and also i added frozen peas in as well to cool down. if i'd been doing purees then i might have made them unreasonably thick then loosened them with cold water to cool and serve, iykwim? but yes, piping hot, deffo. good thing about finger food is that you can just run it under the tap (not so good with toast.

From a bateriological point of view if you prepare the food from fresh and cool and freeze straight away it should be fine to take from the freezer, warm to room temp in a microwave and serve immediately. Thats true whether veggi fruit or meat.

What you want to avoid doing is giving any bugs time out of the freezer to wake up and grow so personally I wouldn't even let anything defrost in the fridge.

I reheat protein to piping hot, but tend to just warm fruit/veg.

Quick way to cool down piping hot food is to just add an ice-cube! Stir it around for a few seconds and it will be nice and cool before the ice-cube has melted very much (so it won't affect the texture of the food). Also have you seen those balls of pureed frozen spinach? They're brilliant, just pop one of those in and it cools the food down whilst adding extra nutrients.