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I found giving our babies their first taste of solid food to be an exciting and daunting milestone in their first year of life. I’m sure most mums and dads feel this way. 

Starting solids definitely requires you to be more organised. So having the right equipment and recipes really helps. Up until this point I had exclusively breastfed both our children on demand, following their cues as to when they were hungry. I found this pretty instinctive and because I am lucky enough to be able to breastfeed, feeding was uncomplicated and could happen anywhere, anytime! Here are a couple of tricks that helped make starting solids a much simpler and less time consuming process:

• Make purees in bulk and freeze straight away. I am a bit bias, but the Munch Baby Trays and the Food Pouches are awesome for freezing baby food. (Don’t forget to label them!)
• Cook extra vegetables and meat for your evening meal and turn them into baby food.
• Make sure you have a good feeding spoon. Again (not bias) but I love the Bamboo Baby Spoons by Munch and the one that comes with the Munch Eco Hero Dinnerset. Both are great sizes, soft, smooth and easily cleaned.
• Use our natural and soft Baby organic facecloths to wipe your little ones face after a messy meal.
• Leave out the salt when you are cooking slow-cooked meals so you can make this into baby food. If you are worried that the flavours will be too strong you can always ‘water’ it down with a root vegetable puree.
• I love going 'out and about' with my babies and I find the Munch Baby Feeder and Food Pouch fantastic for taking food to the park or to friends places.
• If you have other children puree up their meals and feed them to your baby.
• Have a stash of baby food in the pantry for those days when you’re not quite so organised! 

Each baby is so different and they are likely to have their ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’. Just like adults. As a baby my little one LOVED mashed banana and wouldn’t eat avocado where as my other one absolutely LOVED pea puree, she is a complete eating machine and I’m yet to find something she won’t eat!

• Butternut Squash
• Pumpkin
• Carrot
• Kumara (sweet potato)
• Courgette
• Avocado
• Banana (ripe and squashy)
• Pea
• Apple
• Pear
• Potato
• Chicken & Lentils (after about 2 weeks)

If you are confused about which foods your baby can eat check out the list in the Munch Baby Cookbook or the watties printables as they have a helpful guide to baby feeding. Once you have introduced a few foods you can start to mix foods to create some tasty purees for your baby. Here are 3 purees both my children have enjoyed.

ROOT VEGETABLE COMBO

Root vegetables are a great way to start you baby on solids as they are easy to puree and sweet tasting. The first food my little one ate was Butternut Squash. I used this puree as a base when I introduced stronger flavoured solids and also added meat to it later on.

1/3 Butternut Squash
1 Orange Kumera
1 Carrot

Wash, peel and cube all the vegetables. Place in a saucepan and cover with water.

Boil on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until soft.

Remove from the heat and place the vegetables into a container for blending. Do not drain the water away!

Blend add the cooking water bit by bit to achieve the consistency desired.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH, CHICKEN & APPLE PUREE

1/3 Butternut Squash
80 – 100g chicken breast
1/2 apple

Peel the butternut squash and apple. Place in a saucepan and cover with water.

Boil on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until soft.

Meanwhile poach the chicken breast in water until cooked through. Place into boiling water, bring to the boil and then take off the heat. Check about 10 minutes later or if you are not in a hurry just leave in the water to cool. You’ll know they are cooked because they are firm to touch. I find chicken purees best after poaching.

Combine all the ingredients into a container for blending. Do not drain the water away!

Blend and add the vegetable water bit by bit to achieve the consistency desired.

Cover and cool then freeze into portions immediately.

We have a lot more great healthy and nutritious Baby Food in our Munch Baby Cookbook and our Munch Baby Puree Ebook. 

Enjoy the journey!

xx

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By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.  BUT we can all do our bit to stop this from happening. One person can make a difference and everyone must try.  Remember we are role models for our children. Let's start with looking at plastic straws and pegs.

1 Most plastic is toxic

Some plastic straws and pegs are still being made with materials that are potentially toxic or carcinogenic.

2 Plastic is not biodegradable

Even though many disposable straws and pegs are made from recyclable materials, they can be difficult to recycle. According to the Strawless Ocean in the US, plastic straws are too lightweight for recycling sorters and drop through sorting screens and end up in landfills. (And that’s only if someone bothers putting them in the recycling bin to begin with.) As for pegs, majority of the time they break and just end up in the rubbish bin without people even considering to recycle them. But just like straws the likelihood of pegs being able to be recycled is very low in most countries.

Plastic can remain in the environment for over 2,000 years because (most) plastic is not biodegradable. So your delicious drink that you sipped through a straw in 2 minutes will in fact last in the environment for generations. Is this being fair?

In fact, it’s likely that every straw you’ve ever used in your life still exists in the environment somewhere. It just degrades until its microscopic. Even burning it creates harmful dioxin emissions that are bad for your health and the environment.

3 Straws and pegs pollute the ocean

For several different reasons, straws and pegs frequently end up in the ocean because they’re littered on the beach, blown out of trashcans, or washed down storm drains, among other reasons. Studies predict that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight. Because of their small size, aquatic animals can confuse bits of plastic for food and choke on them.

4 Straws and pegs made from stainless steel can be reused

Stainless steel items in 316 steel grade can last for ever so that people can reuse and reuse and reuse.  Try thinking about buying products that will last you a life time not 2 minutes for you and 1 million years for our treasured environment.

5 Plastic Straws and Pegs are wasteful

An average person will go through 15,000 straws and 1,000 pegs in 60 years. No wonder a hundred thousand sea animals and a million birds die each year due to plastic consumption.

What can we do?

To make a change, it’s as simple as asking to not get a straw with your beverage when you order one. It may not feel like you can save the planet on your own, but little habits like this help raise awareness and your influence can easily spread. One small gesture can have a huge impact.

Buy products that last a life time and reuse them for ever.  Try our Munch Stainless Steel Straws and Pegs.  Carry your straws in our carry bag so you have a straw when you are out at a café or restaurant.

So say no to single use plastic and hello to products that you can reuse and not leave such a polluted footprint on our planet.

We can all do the right thing. Be empowered and then empower your children.

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Guess what? With one click you can join the Munch Eco Shop on your school KINDO platform.  There is no easier way to fundraise.  All you have to do is click that button and then your parents can order through KINDO.  Then we do the rest.  We deliver and we give your school a percentage of the sales. Easy pesy!

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Education for our children is such an important step in their life. But here’s the thing we don’t have enough teachers! Why? Because well they are simply unappreciated and underpaid. I don’t know about you but we here at Munch Cupboard do not like this one bit and we need to get behind the teachers.  NZEI said:

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Another month, another review. We absolutely love hearing what you all have to say about our amazing products. We are also so very lucky to have such amazing influencers review our products and give us their honest opinion. This month we have been oh so lucky to have the amazing Millie from Mama Bears Blog review our beautiful Organic Cotton Baby Swaddle. So here’s what Millie had to say about our Organic Cotton Baby Swaddle.

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