Which is better to use for making baby food?

Question

I have been making my own baby food for my 6 month old and have been getting the veggies fresh from a local farm that uses organic growing methods. The question I have is with the fruits. I don't know of anywhere locally that I can get organic fruits, so I have two choices and would like to know which is better for the baby. I could either buy locally grown fruit (not organic) which would be fresh, or I could buy organic fruit from the chain grocery store that is probably not the freshest, but it is grown organically. What do you think?

Answer 1

Hmmm... Good question!

As far as what's good for the environment, go local...  

As far as what's good for your baby's health, probably the organic would be better for SOME fruits--like apples and grapes (but not bananas, which are not part of the "dirty dozen" as far as high pesticides).  

Be choosy--some produce has a whole lot of pesticides and though not fresh, the organic would be the best bet for those foods.  Even frozen organic wouldn't necessarily be a bad choice. (Studies show that they don't lose too much of their nutrients...)

Answer 2

When I made my babies food I always kept in mind what would I rather eat. So I would think fresh, Also just because its organic doesn't necessarily make it better than fresh fruit. Sometimes the products used on crops are not as harsh as we think. If its grown locally you could always go check out the grower and find out what they use on their crops. I would assume they would get that question a lot and most likely wouldn't mind you asking if your planning on using their produce. Then just look it up or ask on here for more info on the products.  

Answer 3

When I made my own baby food I ran into the same thing. I decided fresh was best so I did that for as long as I could. Once the cold weather set in, I bought the canned or frozen stuff. I decided I liked frozen better because it doesn't usually have any added sugar.

Answer 4

either would be fine -- freshness doesn't quite matter as much when you're grinding it up, and you baby won't know the difference

Answer 5

I would go with local, why would you want to buy strawberries thats been air lifted from tibet to north america? I'm all for the 100 mile challenge our town is holding, My town that I live in has farmers markets every day of the week so buying local is so much better and easier; you can actually ask the farmers themselves what they've done to the plant, when they picked them, how they handle them. In the off season I would buy frozen fruits because at least I know the fruit was picked, then frozen right away. In some cases you could get fresher frozen fruit than fresh fruit in a grocery store.

Answer 6

I would get it from the farmer, you know where it comes form, and know what is used on them.  just because the store says organic, you dont exactly know if its the truth, plus its probably cheaper from the farmer