The other day HoneyLuna and I were in the grocery story and we found ourselves in the baby food aisle, which is a place that even when I was the mother of weanlings I didn't spend much time on. In fact, here's something amazing:
I raised four children and never once bought a can of formula or a jar of baby food.
Whoa! Ms. Moon! How did you do that?
Uh. I breastfed and when my kids started eating "real" food, I fed them just that- real food.
You want to know the stupidest thing I've ever seen? The most ridiculous, anti-environmental, over-priced piece of hooey in the world?
A jar of baby food bananas.
What kind of simpleton would buy a JAR of mushed bananas?
When were those bananas grown? And what sort of energy was used to process and can them and transport them to your store and after you use them, what do you do with the jar?
It's so easy to take a piece of banana and smush it with a fork that a three-year old can do it.
Sweet potatoes, same thing. White potatoes.
But what about pears and peaches and apples and carrots and rice and beans and all that other stuff that comes in jars labeled as baby food?
Here's what you do: You cook the food. Same food that grown-ups eat, maybe a little less chili powder, okay? You take a small amount, you put it in that sweet little device in the picture there, you turn the tiny crank and out comes.....BABY FOOD!
Amazing.
That's how I fed all my young'un's. I wonder how much money I saved.
And here's another thing- my kids all grew up liking "real" food.
There's no magic they put in those jars of food. It's not like a jar of baby bananas has anything in it that you would want to feed your baby that doesn't come in a regular old banana.
If you've bought into the organic baby food thing- just buy regular organic food, cook it up, smush it up, and feed it to your child.
Let's face it- if it's not something your baby should eat, you shouldn't be eating it either.
Okay. This post is certainly not earth-shaking or philosophical and there's not one metaphor in it.
I guess it's a rant.
And I have ranted. I could go on and rant about breast versus bottle and baby juices. But I won't. And I won't even mention disposable diapers. Uh-oh. I just did. Sorry.
I will have to admit that I did buy those zwieback cookies for my kids to teeth on, and I'm not sure why. By the time the kid had gummed one of those babies to death, they were covered with a zwieback crust that, mixed with baby saliva, could be used to glue cars together.
They may all still have a bit of that stuff behind their ears. I don't know.
But people- please- a little sanity here. I know the world's going crazy- but jarred bananas?
Okay. I'm done.
Love ya.
