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Bringing a baby into the world is a wonderful thing, as well as a step that comes with all sorts of financial pressures and pitfalls you need to navigate.
Store-bought baby food is a great example, as it comes at a cost, yet provides plenty of convenience compared with the homemade approach. Or at least that’s the assumption which most parents make.
So what’s the reality of the price difference between buying baby food and making it yourself? Let’s drill down into the figures to find out which route is right for your budget.
Table of Contents
The homemade approach examined
There are all sorts of recipes for baby food to try out, so the price of a single batch will vary wildly depending on which you choose to follow, and the cost of the ingredients in your area.
You can use current average prices for produce to do in-depth calculations yourself, but for the sake of argument let’s use the example of mashed banana and avocado. These two work well together, providing plenty of nutrition for a growing baby.
A typical banana costs $1.28 in the US at the moment, while an avocado sits at $2.22. Depending on the size of each, let’s assume you can get four servings out of this combo, leaving you with a per-serving cost of just over $0.87.
If you were to buy the equivalent store bought item, you’d pay at least $2 for a non-organic example, and over $4 for an organic product. So the cost is double, or even quadruple, that of the homemade counterpart.
The store-bought conundrum expanded upon
It’s not just the cost that comes into play when choosing baby food. With scandals like the NEC baby formula lawsuit, more parents are asking probing questions about the reputation of the brands they buy from, and the types of ingredients that are used in products aimed at infants.
So even if preparing your own baby food wasn’t cheaper, there would still be the element of control that you have when you’re the one choosing the ingredients.
If you want to go all-natural and even completely organic, that’s in your power. If you’re looking for the best value food on a tight budget, that’s also your choice, but only if you settle on homemade chow for your children.
The issue of prep
Earlier we talked about how store-bought baby food is more convenient, because there’s no need to mess around with preparing fruits or vegetables when you’re already overloaded with the other responsibilities of parenthood. And as any consumer knows, convenience is something you have to pay for.
However, that doesn’t mean that the process of preparing homemade dishes for your little ones needs to be time consuming. It’s all about choosing the right recipes and having the right ingredients to hand.
Take the example of the avocado and banana discussed above in the cost analysis section. Ripe examples of these fruits will take moments to de-skin and mash together in a bowl, so really the amount of time you’d be saving with a store-bought stand-in is minimal.
There’s also the question of sustainability. Baby food faces a real issue with single use plastics at the moment, with pouch-based products being particularly problematic in this context.
Meanwhile with homemade recipes, you don’t have to worry about this whatsoever. And if you’re an eco-conscious individual, that’s a real selling point.
Final thoughts
The main point to take away from this is that you don’t have to feel bad about steering clear of store-bought baby food because of cost concerns. The reality is that homemade food is better for everyone, regardless of budget.
