Earlier this week we posted a question from Christy in the United States. Christy subsequently sent us another interesting question – the answer to which we thought other parents might find useful.
Christy wanted to know if she needed to use the four day rule when giving her baby a food such as homemade carrots IF her little one had previously been introduced to jarred carrots. She also wondered if it is safe to switch to one brand of jarred carrots to another.
Here’s our reply…
If your daughter has been regularly eating jarred carrots and has experienced no unwelcome reaction, then homemade carrots should be fine. One thing you may like to think about, however, is the fact that many foods become less allergenic when they are cooked.
For example, you may have given your daughter jarred baby food containing strawberries, with no adverse reaction at all. But the strawberries in commercial baby food are cooked at a high temperature, massively reducing their likelihood of causing a reaction (and destroying many of the nutrients, too). If you then gave your daughter fresh, uncooked strawberries, you may find that she DOES have a reaction to them.
Therefore, it’s important to remember that jarred baby food is cooked – and it’s a good idea to introduce a food using the four day rule IF you are serving it raw, whereas your baby has previously only eaten it when cooked.
You’ll find more information about whether or not to cook fruits and veggies here
As to the other part of your question – there should be no problem in giving your daughter jars of the SAME type of food made by DIFFERENT companies… although, of course, we think that the homemade variety is infinitely better (and cheaper!)
What do YOU think – has your baby ever suffered any type of reaction/digestive problem with a food that you’ve made at home, whereas he ate the jarred variety with no problem at all?
We’d love to hear from you – just leave your comments below.
And if you have lots of leftover jars after making the switch to homemade baby food, here are some great ways to reuse them.