Commercial baby foods are perfectly acceptable and are useful when travelling or eating away from home. The food section of any supermarket gives you an amazing range of gorgeously packaged, utterly delicious-sounding, prepared foods that need no more preparation than removing the lid or opening the box.

However, we should not rely on commercial baby food and use homemade baby food as much as possible.

“Homemade foods expose babies to more flavours and a wider variety of family foods and as a result babies tend to be less picky about foods as they grow up”.

Any mum that has a picky eater would do anything to turn back the clock and give their baby a wider variety of foods early on. There is a proven link between early food experience (exposure) and subsequent food acceptance. Here at Mummy Cooks we are not a fan of pouches as they do not allow the child to see or touch the food they are eating. They also tend to be served cold which does not allow the child to actually taste the food.

If you do buy commercial baby-food check out the protein content. Meat or fish dishes should contain at least 2g of protein per 100g. Sweet meals should contain at least 1g protein per 100g. You can also add some fresh fruit and vegetables to make it a more nutritious meal.