What You Need To Know: Introducing Baby To Table Food + Homemade Fruit Snacks Recipe!
Once your baby is ready for table food how do you know how to transition baby off of baby food and start them on table food while still maintaining a healthy, balanced diet? It can be tricky. Beech-Nut, the makers of nutritious baby food, recognized this challenge and conducted a study to find out how babies are transitioning to table food and what their diets look like after they are transitioned off of baby food. The results were quite surprising to me and I’m sure you’ll be surprised too. They found that unbalanced eating patterns are developing as early as 9 months of age!
The Beech-Nut-commissioned study analyzed 11 years of food and beverage consumption data between 0-24 months from the National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES). The startling results show that as infants move from baby food to whole food, they are eating more French fries, sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets than they are vegetables and whole grains. Furthermore, by 12 months they are consuming adult levels of sodium and added sugars. What can you do to prevent this from happening with your own child? I’ve got tips and helpful recipes to get your baby on the road to healthy eating habits and make the transition from baby food to table food as painless as possible.
You can find an entire tip sheet, provided by registered dietitian and pediatric nutrition expert Nicole Silber, to help transition your baby from baby food to a healthy diet of table food HERE. Some of my favorite tips, which you can find in the tip sheet, include:
- Blending pureed carrots like Beech-Nut® Naturals™ just carrots into tomato sauce
- Topping unsweetened, plain yogurt with real fruit purees in place of buying the flavored yogurts that are loaded with added sugars
- Making colorful and tasty popsicles by adding water to a favorite fruit & veggie blends, like Beech-Nut® Naturals™ just beets, pear & pomegranate, putting in ice cube trays and then freezing
I love making my own homemade fruit snacks using Beech-Nut® Naturals™ fruit blends and 100% fruit juice. If you’ve ever read the label on store-bought fruit snacks you’ll find that the one thing they are lacking is real fruit! They are loaded with sugar and corn syrup and are basically no better than candy. By making your own you can avoid the sugar and have healthy fruit snacks at a fraction of the price you’d pay in the store.
For this homemade fruit snacks recipe I used Beech-Nut® Naturals™ just guava, pear & strawberry along with 100% berry fruit juice. You’ll also need silicone molds for your gummies. I used these lego molds and these gummy bear molds are a smaller size for toddlers.
Print off the recipe below or pin this post for later!
What You Need To Know: Introducing Baby To Table Food + Homemade Fruit Snacks Recipe!
Ingredients
- 1/2 Cup fruit puree *I used Beech-Nut® Naturals™ just guava pear & strawberry
- 1/2 Cup 100% fruit juice *I used berry
- 5 Packs Knox PLAIN gelatin
- 2 Tbsp honey
Instructions
- Mix puree and juice in small saucepan.
- Sprinkle Knox gelatin over the top of the mixture and let it dissolve until it looks wrinkly.
- Warm over medium heat and whisk together until well mixed.
- Heat until mixture reaches a thin consistency.
- Turn off heat and whisk in honey.
- Pour into silicone molds using a squirt bottle or dropper to fill each mold.
- Place in fridge for 1 hour or until firm. Pop out of the molds and store in an airtight container. Keep refrigerated.
Other ways to keep nutritious foods in your baby’s diet include adding baby cereals or baby food into table foods so you know they are still getting the nutrition they need while they are able to explore finger foods and self-feeding. These baby rice cereal pancakes are the perfect finger food for baby and they include rice cereal in them and you can serve them with baby food fruit blends for dipping. It’s a great combination and baby’s love to dip their foods! You can get the baby rice cereal pancakes recipe here.
What table foods do you serve your baby?
No way! My kids love fruit snacks, so I definitely need to make them some of these.
Oh my goodness, these are awesome. I am always leery on what is found in pre-packaged snacks and making these at home would take those feelings away. Thanks so much for sharing
This is a good idea! Never thought of using this to make fruit snacks. What a creative way to make them. My son loves fruit snacks and he would he eat these all the time.
Those sound great! My sons love fruit snacks. I’d much rather make them instead of buying sugar filled ones at the store.
Beech-Nut is such a great brand of baby food. I have never thought of using it to make fruit snacks.
I remember when my kids were transitioning to table foods. These fruit snacks look really good I know my kids wold love them.
Holy cow! Those are amazing. So creative. My kids are going to love them! I think my daughter will like to help make them too!
I’ve done homemade fruit leather more times than I can count, but I’ve never thought of making fruit snacks. Very clever.
Those looks so fun! I bet my boys would love them, even if they’re not baby/toddlers anymore. 🙂
That is really cool! I would love to make these just for fun. Thanks for a cool recipe idea.
Those are some fun fruit snacks. My girls would love them! I have made homemade fruit leather before, but never fruit snacks. I’m going to give them a try. My girls love fruit snacks.
I haven’t met a child yet who doesn’t love fruit snacks.
I am excited to try making these gummies. They look delicious and easy to make. My kids are going to love them.
Wow, I had no idea you could start unbalanced eating so young. I think it is interesting what a focus is put on healthy eating with nursing versus formula, but far less on the food when they transition to real food. Thanks for the great info and recipe.
These are too cute! I would love to make some for my kiddos!
These are so fun! I love that there’s nothing weird in them.
That is the best part of them. You know exactly what you are feeding them.
I think my son would love these! Thanks for sharing on Monday Funday!
Holly @ creatively living
All children would love those homemade fruit snacks with fun shapes. And such an easy recipe too! Thanks for sharing with us at Merry Monday. I look forward to seeing what you’ve been up to next.
It’s about time to introduce table food to my baby, so this is a great idea!
I’m glad that this was so timely for you.
That infographic is depressing! I’m glad they did that research though! We have 5 month old and will definitely be more aware now of getting him the fruits and veggies he needs.
It is hard to believe that many of the ‘good’ for them baby foods can be so bad for them.
seems like a lot of gelatin for a single batch o.o’ iv made gummy’s with a single pack of gelatin and they set just fine o.o’
Can I omit the honey or replace it with something else? Is the honest just for flavor or does it help it stay together?
The honey helps them stay together. You could try substituting something like agave instead.
Recently, I had a few issues with my motorcycle’s engine performance and was looking for a reliable repair shop. After some research, I found Starlight Automotive https://starlightautomotive.com/services/motorcycle-repair and was impressed by their comprehensive motorcycle repair services. I brought my bike in, and their skilled mechanics quickly identified the problem—a faulty fuel injector that was affecting performance. They provided a detailed explanation of the repair process and completed the job efficiently. Since then, my motorcycle has been running smoothly, and the power delivery is much better. The level of expertise and professionalism they demonstrated was outstanding. If you’re in need of top-notch motorcycle repair or maintenance, Starlight Automotive is definitely worth checking out!