Fruit puree: selection, input in foods and recipes
Fruit puree in the diet of an infant baby not only gives him the pleasure of a new taste, but also enriches the body crumbs with vitamins. Among other things, the composition of the product contains dietary fiber necessary for a soft and delicate digestion and eliminate typical infant bowel problems.
In this article we will talk about how to give fruit to the smallest, how to buy high-quality mashed potatoes, how to make it yourself.
What kind of mashed potatoes suitable for children?
Fruit puree is usually injected second after the toddler is introduced to a similar vegetable dish. They are easier absorbed by the child's body. therefore for the first fruit delicacy it is better to choose the combined type of productin which the fruit component is combined with vegetable, for example, pumpkin and fruit puree.
For children of the first year of life, apple puree, pear puree, and berry variants of a tasty dish are usually offered later.
There is a wide choice of such a product on the wide sale today, but not all of its types are suitable for feeding babies. Therefore,When choosing it is important to focus on proven manufacturers and on the age group, indicated on the jar with mashed potatoes. Do not buy for the baby product in soft packagingIt is usually intended for older children.
Make sure that the puree complies with GOST, this information should also be indicated on the packaging. In addition, first consult with the pediatrician to exclude temporary indications for the introduction of fruit foods.
When buying a food for feeding, pay attention to a few points.
- Shelf life. It must comply with the standards, after opening the jar, you can store it in the refrigerator for no more than a day. Ideally, for each feeding, it is better to open a new can. An overdue and usable product produces a deaf cotton when opening the lid. If there is no such “signal”, feeding the baby with mashed potatoes is dangerous.
- Composition. In the composition of high-quality baby food should not be dyes, preservatives, food additives and flavors, sugar. For a suitable puree, a composition in which only fruit and water is present is considered natural, and for puree with cream, fruit, water and cream.
Fruit puree for a child is best before you offer it to your baby, try it yourself. If something seems suspicious (color, texture, smell), it is better not to give a crumbs of this product.. But also pediatricians do not recommend mashed potatoes with the addition of soy, although many parents have been very fond of this product lately.
It is worth buying a few jars of finished fruit puree, and keep in the fridge just in case. This is necessary, since not all children love homemade mashed potatoes, even if the mother has the time and opportunity to cook it. And because the baby, even such a small, must have a choice.
Can I add to porridge?
Such a question is faced by parents whose children do not want to eat fruit puree separately (which happens infrequently) or do not want to eat cereal separately (this happens much more often). In this situation, they say experienced mothers, you can mix fruit delicacy and such a familiar ordinary porridge, then offer this dish to the child. It is necessary to understand this problem in more detail.
If we start from the compatibility of products, then full understanding prevails between cereal or cereal porridge and fruit. However, it should be borne in mind that fruit acids can "fold" the milk component of cereals. That is why the child will have to eat milk porridge with coagulated, actually sour milk. This will enhance the fermentation processes in the intestines.
For this reason add fruit puree to milk porridge is not recommended. But you can eat these two products alternately.
If they prefer to give the baby a non-dairy gruel, then it is perfectly acceptable to mix it with a delicacy of fruits in one plate.
How to enter into the diet of the baby?
According to the rules, introducing fruit food for baby food is recommended after feeding with vegetables. Violation of this generally accepted and approved by the WHO scheme may lead the child to give up vegetables completely, because their taste is not as sweet and rich as the taste of fruit. In addition, the fruits themselves are more allergenic than vegetables, and fructose can negatively affect the baby's pancreas, if the supplement is introduced out of time, too early, when the child's body is not ready for it.
Since it is recommended to introduce vegetables from 4-6 months, it is worth 1.5-2 months later to be puzzled about the timeliness of the first fruit feeding. But it should also be understood that the amount of product that can normally be given to infants should be about half as much as the allowable amount of vegetable dishes.
Before the child to give fruit, be sure to make sure that he is ready for such changes in diet. See if the crumb chews with his jaws, for example, during a game. Its weight should be sufficient, and the rate of weight gain should correspond to the age norm.
Consider the basic rules of fruit foods.
- Fruits are added to the baby’s food in stages, starting with the lowest allergy. Unusual food is given in the amount of half a teaspoon, not more. During the day, mother vigilantly monitors the reaction of the child's body to changes in the menu. If a rash or eating disorder does not occur, you can increase the amount of mashed potatoes to 1 tsp.
- Do not assume that the child will immediately begin to eat the proposed fruit with delight. This is not always the case. If he refuses to mash, do not force and push the product into the mouth by force. Just offer it again in a few days. Usually 2-3 times enough for the baby to decide to try the dish.
- In one day you can not give the child more than one new product. If allergies develop, it will be difficult to determine which of them has a negative reaction.
- Start with one-component fruit purees or products mixed with vegetables. Gradually, it will be possible to switch to multi-component, in which several kinds of fruits are combined at once.
- The first acceptable fruits for which allergy is least likely to develop are the green apple and pear. If you start eating vegetable vegetable food at 4-6 months, you can try to give these types of food at 6-8 months.
- A month after the introduction of the first fruit, you can try alternately introduce prunes, banana, plum, peach. By the year can be included in the diet blueberries, apricots and black currants. Up to three years, the child should not be given exotic fruits that do not grow in the area where the family lives, in principle. For example, cloudberries will be useful for a child born and living in the Arctic, but apricots will not bring him any substantial benefit. Exotic fruit (kiwi, avocado, pineapple, citrus) is better not to give up to the age of three.
The best recipes for complementary foods
Many parents prefer to prepare fruit puree for their nursing baby on their own. There is a large share of this decision in this decision: the fresh mashed potatoes are fresh, the mother can be sure of his quality, especially if the fruit is grown in her own summer cottage and collected by her own hands. It is not recommended to prepare baby puree from imported imported fruit.. If it is winter in the yard, and there are no apples in your lane, it is better to limit yourself to mashed potatoes in jars. Considering the seasonality factor, choose only ripe fruit.that have no defects - dents, cracks, rot, wormholes, "broken sides."
It is not at all difficult to make mashed potatoes, you just need to choose the appropriate recipe. Regardless of the chosen method, the fruit should be thoroughly washed, freed from the skin, seeds, cut into slices of quite solid size. In a container with a small amount of liquid, add fruit pieces and boil for about a quarter of an hour. Make mashed boiled slices easy - just wipe them through a fine sieve or grind with a blender. Do not add sugar, vanilla or other additives.
If there is an opportunity to cook the fruit for a couple, it is better to give preference to this method, because in a double boiler or in a slow cooker (double boiler mode) apples or pears will retain more vitamins and beneficial substances.
Mom is offered to help several time-tested recipes for homemade fruit purees.
From prunes
Wash the prunes, free it from the seeds and pour hot water for 4-5 hours. After that, boil for about 25 minutes. With boiled prunes peel off, pass it through a blender or strainer.
If the consistency is too thick, add some fruit broth, in which prunes were cooked.
Pear
Selected pears need to be washed in warm water, cut, remove the hearts. Peel is also better to clean before heat treatment. The pear is cut into medium-sized cubes, poured with water in a small amount and boiled for 10-15 minutes. The softer the pear variety, the less time it should cook..
Then boiled fruit without sugar rubbed with a strainer or blender in mashed potatoes.
From apple
Green apples should be washed, peeled and completely freed from the hard middle, seeds and peel. Cut into cubes and cook in a saucepan or a slow cooker with a small amount of drinking water, without adding sugar and honey. Wipe the boiled pieces can be a blender or through a fine sieve.
From peach
Too sweet and too soft sugar peaches, which are so much loved by adults and older children, are not suitable for home-made mashed potatoes. Take medium hard fruit. They must be thoroughly washed and scalded with boiling water. After that, the peaches will be easier to peel. Remove the bones, cut the fruit into slices and fold into a saucepan or double boiler.
After the water, the level of which should only slightly cover the top of the fruit slices, boils, you need to hold them for another 10 minutes. Grind the slices need a blender. Usually such a dish is thick.
How to prepare for the winter?
You can prepare baby food and in advance, when there is a favorable harvest season in the yard. If the child was born at the end of the summer, it is reasonable to assume that he will need food in the winter, when fresh pears and peaches are not found, and imported ones may be dangerous. In this case, you can make food with your own hands at home in the summer and prepare for the winter.
Puree is prepared in this case according to one of the above recipes, but there is one caveat - after chopping the finished fruit with a blender, the resulting homogeneous mass should be put back on fire and boiled again. Then add a few drops of citric acid. Puree is also prepared without sugar.
Hot mashed potatoes are laid out in jars, which were previously sterilized, and rolled up with lids. Allow to cool upside down and clean in a dark, dry place.
It should be noted that mashed potatoes without sugar is worse stored than mashed potatoes with the addition of a small amount of sugar. But for an infant, this option is not suitable. But for a child aged two to three years, you can make a lot of tasty and healthy preparations for the winter.
Some parents prefer to freeze fresh mashed potatoes. This method also takes place. In this case, the cooked dish is laid out in small forms and put in the freezer.
It is important to remember that fruit puree, which has already been thawed once, cannot be re-frozen. And because the forms need to immediately choose a small, almost portioned.
And there are also risks to lose all stocks if, for example, electricity is disconnected for a day without a working generator. In this case, the contents of the freezer will have to be thrown away or consumed to prepare dishes for adults.
To learn how to make fruit puree with dried apricots for children from 6 months, see the following video.