Freeze baby food

Nicole Wendler holds a PhD in biology in the field of oncology and immunology. As a medical editor, author and proofreader, she works for various publishers, for whom she presents complex and extensive medical issues in a simple, concise and logical manner.

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Even baby food tastes better when you make it yourself. Even so, you don't have to cook every day: Prepare large quantities of baby food straight away, which you then freeze and save a lot of time. However, not all foods are suitable for freezing. Read here which foods are particularly easy to process and what to look out for when freezing baby food.

Freezing baby food: save time

Everyday life with a baby can get hectic. Would you still like to cook for your offspring, but are you afraid that it will cost you too much time? That doesn't have to be the case: if you freeze the baby food, you can easily pre-cook it and avoid having to throw away excess amounts. When freezing and thawing, you should consider a few things so that the heated baby food is just as healthy and tastes just as good as it is freshly cooked.

Freezing baby food: what to watch out for

Especially with very young children, hygiene is a top priority when preparing food. So that germs don't stand a chance when freezing the porridge, you should boil the containers before filling. Make sure to freeze the baby food quickly, this will preserve the nutrients and ensure the shelf life.

As soon as the porridge has cooled down, you can transfer it to suitable containers and freeze the baby porridge. You should only add oil and spices after thawing, then it tastes better. How long the frozen porridge lasts depends on the temperature: at a minimum of -18 degrees it will last baby's meal for several months.

Freezing baby food: container

Choose the right container to freeze the baby food, as the shelf life largely depends on it. You can use all containers that are suitable for the freezer and that can be hermetically sealed.

Some manufacturers also offer a few helpful additional functions for freezing baby food. The special containers can be reliably sealed airtight with a screw cap and you can use a label to keep track of which baby food it contains. By the way: Ice cube trays are ideal for freezing particularly small portions of baby food. You can later simply transfer the frozen cubes into a freezer bag.

Freezing baby food: which foods are suitable?

Not all foods are good for freezing baby food, because freezing can change the consistency or taste. You should rather avoid the following foods:

• banana
• avocado
• melon
• Citrus fruits
• Potatoes, rice, pasta

Even if many recipes call for freezing potatoes, rice and pasta as complementary foods, this is not recommended. Due to the high starch content, the porridge becomes granular after thawing and does not result in a homogeneous mass. It is better to freeze the right vegetables as a porridge and freshly cook potatoes and the like.

Aside from the few exceptions, there is a wide variety of foods that your baby will like and that are great for the freezing process. Particularly popular are:

• Carrots
• zucchini
• fennel
• pumpkin
• applesauce
• Different types of meat

You are free to choose the composition of the baby food. However, avoid large amounts of fennel and spinach in the first few months of complementary food as they are high in nitrate. Bacteria are able to convert nitrate to nitrite. Infants are sensitive to nitrite in the first few months of life, as it changes the red blood cells. Oxygen deficiency can occur due to disturbed oxygen transport. Nitrate-rich foods are generally safe for children over the age of one.

How do you thaw baby food again?

The baby food should be thawed quickly but gently immediately before the meal. A water bath or the microwave is suitable for this. This means that important nutrients are retained even after complementary foods have been thawed.

If you want to heat the baby food in the microwave, make sure that the heat is evenly distributed throughout the meal. To do this, you can stir the porridge with a spoon in between. It is essential to test the degree of heat before you feed the heated baby food.

For reasons of hygiene, the baby food should not be slowly thawed overnight. Always make sure not to interrupt the cold chain before warming up baby food, this is especially true in summer. In this way you protect your child from dangerous bacterial contamination when freezing baby food. For the same reason, thawed baby food should be consumed as quickly as possible.

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