Making baby food

[jenny287]

I'm SOOO confused! I'm making my own baby food, but I'm not sure which blender/processor to buy. Should I buy glass to avoid BPA or are there BPA free ones? I saw the Williams Sonoma one, but that's a little too much for me right now. Any suggestions? This BPA thing has me freaked out! Which ones are the best? Safest?

Thank you all!

[Katigre]

I would not use a BPA food processor (and as far as I know they all are).

You can get a Hand Immersion Blender for $25 or so (I have the cuisinart one and use it for pureeing soups and it's great!) and then blend the baby food in a metal or glass bowl instead. That is actually what quite a few of my friends did.

[Sweetum]

I'm assuming blending is going to happen at room temperature. Is BPA a concern at that temp too? I prepare DS' food by using a potato masher or a fork (depending on the type of food). But I do store them in plastic (ziploc) bags in the freezer, and thaw them in toss and throw containers (plastic and BPA free). My MIL, who takes care of DS during the day, puts these containers on steam to warm the food, and then feeds them to DS (out of his silver bowl). Anything wrong in what I'm doing? I also have a magic bullet container set aside for processing DS' food - never had to use it so far, except to gring pearled barley.

Look forward to hear your thoughts...

TIA
-SunshineAndMe

[maestramommy]

Dh got me a small food processor for my bday a couple of years ago, and I used it to make Arwyn's food, before I realized the bowl was polycarbonate, and therefore had BPA. Doh! Hmmmm, not sure what to do now. I LOVE that food processor. It was perfect for making baby food. And Laurel's coming up on 6 months.

[cestkaren]

I had better luck using my immersion blender over a food chopper, the food was smoother and the process quicker. I'm not a BPA expert, but just blending warm food in a plastic container - I woundn't think that would cause leakage of BPA. I thought most of the leakage was either caused by heat or length of contact mainly with acidic food (canned tomatoes).

[MmeSunny]

I thought that BPA leached from either long exposure and/or heat. So I would assume then that the short duration in a food processing bowl and the lack of heat during the processing would not leach BPA.

Someone more scientific that I can chime in, but I remember those statements last year during the BRU bottle exchange fiasco.

[BayGirl2]

I thought that BPA leached from either long exposure and/or heat. So I would assume then that the short duration in a food processing bowl and the lack of heat during the processing would not leach BPA.

Someone more scientific that I can chime in, but I remember those statements last year during the BRU bottle exchange fiasco.

Yes (as far as I understand it at least) the risk with BPA is from heat cycling and storage time. If the food is just warm and in a food processor for less than 5 minutes, I believe the risk of any BPA leeching is minimal. If someone has research to prove otherwise, I'm interested to see it.

We find it more effective to use our blender to make baby food anyway. The blender container is glass, so no BPA issue. If you are really concerned I would suggest this route. I've tried an immersion blender too but find it doesn't get the chucks out as reliably as a regular blender for stage 1 purees.

[brittone2]

Some studies have shown BPA still leeches at room temperature. Heat just accelerates the process. Most people also end up washing their food processor bowls in hot water in the sink, which theoretically can set BPA up to leech more. I know our Cuisinart food processor bowl is getting a "cloudy" appearance after a few years of use and abuse, and in the past some studies have indicated that any sort of damage like that ("cloudy" baby bottles for example) may indicate more leeching.

Study on leeching at room temp:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12842771?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed _ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=16

IMO the problem w/ BPA is that even in small doses, it can have an impact, especially when you look at synergy with other chemicals (for example, a small dose of BPA plus a small dose of several other hormone disruptors can make for a large overall health impact...the research on this is in its relative infancy but there are some preliminary studies showing synergy does in fact happen). Trace amounts are trace amounts, but when combined w/ other chemicals can have a much larger impact than initially realized (and that's more representative of our real life exposures than studies that look at each chemical in isolation). These aren't BPA specific but to give an idea of what happens with synergy:
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/synergy/synergy.htm

I still use my Cuisinart but would not use it to make baby food. There are some new plastics coming out that are BPA free (Titan copolymer used in Vitamix blenders for example) but even then the details are IMO a little sketchy.

[rizzo0904]

I made my own baby food. For some things I used a hand mixer and for other I used and immersion blender. You don't need to buy anything special...just use what you have on hand.