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What food do moms prepare for their growing infants and toddlers all over the world?

Each new mother in the world is bombarded by competing baby food companies with attractive coupons for readily prepared jarred and boxed baby and toddler foods. Since nowadays time is the most valuable asset, many moms choose to buy these foods for their infants transitioning into solids. These foods are enriched with vitamins and minerals as well as prepared according to nutritional standards and it seems like a good choice for you and your child. Making traditional home made foods, on the other hand, takes time, effort and careful nutritional planning to make sure your baby receives all necessary nutritional elements. Therefore grabbing that little cute jar from the shelf, heating it up in the microwave and serving might be very tempting but here is some food for thought for you:

- Jarred food is jarred food after all and will never replace fresh homemade food.
- One jar costs almost a dollar and when you buy about 25 jars for a week, the total amount spent could be over 15 dollars. Not quite cheap even for well to do families. For some families trying to make ends meet, this could be a real serious expense.
- Throughout the centuries mothers were cooking food for their babies using advice and recipes of other moms, their mothers and grandmothers and all of them and us did not look undernourished after all!
- Various recipes originated in different parts of the world based on what products are available in that country. Now, here in the US we have an amazing opportunity to access a wide variety of food products from different countries because of our immigrant population and available international grocery stores. Many of us already enjoy international cuisine while appreciating its nutritional benefits. Why not to make an authentic Indian or Chinese or Eastern European dish for your little one?

Although foods prepared by companies are made with vitamins added, home made foods are rich in natural nutritional elements. The important thing is to prepare a wide variety of foods during a week so that your baby gets all what’s best offered by mother nature.

Many basic recipes provided here will be very simple and easy to make so that a busy mom could have food ready in about 30 minutes. If you are cooking for a bigger child you might add some sugar, salt or mild spices to make food tastier. However if you are cooking for an infant, until one year, use salt and sugar sparingly. If you can don’t use them at all because it will be healthier and also your baby is not yet familiar with the world of tastes and can enjoy plain food.
The purpose of this section is to encourage moms with different cultural backgrounds to share easy and quick to make baby and toddler food recipes. Note that these recipes are written by moms and not by nutritional specialists. Use your common sense to evaluate the recipe and to decide how to balance your child's diet. You can also refer to our article Nutritional Tips for additional information regarding making your child's diet nutritionally balanced.

Please send in your recipes to us. We will post it here and other moms will benefit from it. Also, send in your comments, if you think some of these recipes can be improved. All advices and improvements are always welcome. After all, we want to cook the best food for our children.

All these recipes are very simple and easy to cook.

• Oats Porridge  : Lithuanian
• Milk Noodle Soup  : Indian
• Apple Rice Porridge  : Chinese
• Broccoli Puree  : Editors
• Carrot Rice Puree  : American