Organic Versus Regular

Hi T..
Organic food is food grown without hormones, chemicals, pesticides, etc. So, it's much healthier than the regular food. The meats don't have all the hormones that regular meats have. It's good to buy organic milk as well. So many of our kids now are entering puberty way too young now because of all the hormones in milk and meats. We try to do as much organic as possible. It is a little pricey, but very worth it! Our son has been on mostly organic food his whole life and has only been sick once! Well, i hope this helps you out!

You must be careful with organic products. Some are labled as such and are just falsely advertised to charge more for the product. Organic food is more costly because they are supposed to have less preservatives.

Your best alternantive is to make your own baby food by boiling/blending your fruits and vegetables (lightly seasoned if you wish) at home.
Carrots, peas, sweet potato, butternut squash, prunes, pears, apples, bananas, etc. The variety is endless and you know what goes into each meal.

Too be honest I dunno,maybe look at the food labels and note the number of sugars carbs ect.....I know that organic foods do not use pestisides and stuff like that ( like veggies).

I do notice the differance in price...organic costing more. My son had colic as a babe and when we started baby foods organic and regular did not make a differance. I tended to stay with Gerber then.

Maybe someone more into organics can give more details
Hope I was helpful

There was a great article in Parenting magazine about this very thing. It was a while back though, like sept of 05 maybe? Anyway, what it said was that the baby food process does so much to break down the food, that the fact that a vegetable/fruit was grown organically does not really matter. So organic baby food is not cost effective for what you get as there is very little difference between the two. If you are concerned about having a healthier baby food, I would recommend making your own in a blender. Applesauce made from parts of 1 apple are much healthier than those made from parts of 100 different apples (vitamins, nutrients, fiber wise). Remember this also when choosing between giving your child a piece of fruit vs. fruit juice. Best of luck - hope this helps!

I really don't think it's too big a deal once the fruit/veggie becomes actual baby food because they're so heavily broken down by the time they're packaged. However, I feed my son mostly organic, but that is only because I like the food combinations and he likes them better. Eventually you get tired of peas, squash, carrots and green beans (or the mixed/garden veggie which is a combo of the above). Earth's Best brand offers some very interesting pairings that my son LOVES, such as: rice and lentils, spinach and potatoes, pear raspberry, summer vegetable, peas and brown rice, green beans and rice etc. I still buy regular gerber fruits though.

I just think about it this way: the regulations set by the FDA are so stringent that there is hardly any risk at all that you're baby will ingest any harmful substances. There is actually more risk of contamination when you make your own baby food because common household bacterias can get into the food (i.e. salmonella, e.coli)

The big deal with organics is that you get less preservatives, and often you get less sugar and other "yucks".

Also, some people worry about the chemicals that farmers put on their crops getting into the food supply. For instance, a farmer sprays Round-Up on his strawberry crop repeatedly to keep the weeds from growing up around them, and then the strawberrries are picked and put in the store. Some kid comes along, picks up the strawberry, and eats it without a thorough washing. Yuck. Supposedly, it's safe, but many people worry that there will be adverse effects in the long run.

With organics, this is not a worry, as they are grown without pesticides and unnatural fertilizers.

Certified Organic foods are watched FAR more heavily than any other food. They must undergo rigorous certification and are checked up on reguarly. Conventionally grown crops, on the other hand, are almost never checked...only a very small percentage of the food in our conventional food supply gets government inspection. Mostly, the government leaves companies to check themselves.

Babies are tender little things, and so many people buy organic baby food even if they don't worry about it for their older children.

Hi T.,

I am not sure if organic food made the difference for me when I was pregnant to have such a healthy preemie. When I found out I was pregnant a lot of food I ate was organic. My son was born at 29 weeks, and he was on the oxygen for one day and have never had any health issues. When I was pumping milk I ate organic and when my son started eating solids it's been organic (Earth's Best for the most part). I have also been blending my own organic fruits and veggies. The formula he's been getting for the last 5 months has been organic formula (by Similac). Again, I am not sure if the food made the difference. My pediatrician said, my son would catch up with other kids by the age of two, due to his prematurity, but now he is 11 months old and he has caught up. He is almost walking. He already says a few basic words (mama, dada, baba, he knows where the light is, he knows what the dog is, he plays very simple peek-a-boo..he does a lot of things that an 11 months old does). We are not organic freaks, but I figured it can't harm him if he eats pure organic for the first year.

Foods must meet certain requirements to be certified organic:
-no toxic synthetic pesticides & fertilizers used on the farm for at least 3 yrs
-no use of sewage sludge as fertilizer
-no irradiation
-use fresh manure after a required waiting period between application of manure and harvest of foods

This info came from Lisa Barnes' "The Petit Appetit". She also covers info on organic meats and animal products.

HTH!