A Mom's Plan To Feed Her Children The Right Food

The Origin of Homemade Baby

by Theresa Kiene

I'll never forget that dinner (or was it that breakfast?) when I noticed my six month old, Olivia, intently watching my every bite of food. Then and there, I knew that breast milk alone was no longer enough. Suddenly I looked at her, panicked: "What do I do now?!"

Little did I realize the answer to that question would ignite a passion that caused me to quit a high-paying job, leave a twenty-year career in television, and stake my family's life savings on a three minute pitch to the President of Whole Foods.

Let me back up...

As my six-month-old's eyes followed every spoonful of cereal (okay, so it was breakfast) to my mouth, I wondered how I could share with her all those delicious tastes and food experiences from my childhood - only in a healthy way. I grew up surrounded by great cooks. Unfortunately, nobody ever read a label (can you say "Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes"?) Certainly back then, nobody thought about the looming epidemic of childhood obesity, or the affect that food additives have on a child's health and behavior - which explains my own love-hate relationship with food.

Today we know that the first three years of life will likely determine a child's life-long food choices. The more pure and fresh the experience, the better their little tummies feel and the better the associations they forge with nutritious food. So I decided to take my family recipes and give them a nutritional make-over for my hungry-eyed baby. Of course, that meant I'd have to do some research.

The word "organics" and "all natural" were everywhere in health food stores.

But what did it all mean?

Organic vegetables and fruits are grown without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, bioengineering or ionizing radiation. Organic meat and dairy come from animals given only organically grown food that is antibiotic and steroid free. Some of the chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides used by non-organic farmers have been linked in studies to cancer, nerve damage, birth defects and genetic mutations. And the chemicals used on the farm don't always wash off. More than 80% of the conventionally grown fruits and vegetables tested by the USDA's "Pesticide Data Program" contained at least one pesticide residue.

So why would we feed that to our most vulnerable population - babies and children?

A recent study by a team of federally funded scientists from the University of Washington, Emory University and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that switching to organic foods provides children "dramatic and immediate" protection from pesticides that are widely used on a variety of crops.

I also learned that it's not enough to buy baby food that claims it's organic. Look for the logo. It's only organic if the label has a seal that says: USDA Organic. Usually the seal is green, sometimes it's brown. However, that's not all -- the food must also have the logo from an independent organic certifying agency, such as Oregon Tilth or QAI. If your baby food doesn't have labels from the USDA and that independent certifying agency, you can't be certain it's organic.

Everybody wants the best for their baby. That explains $800 strollers. Sometimes we spend more money on what we put our baby in than on what we put in our baby. Since jarred food was first introduced in 1928, Gerber's fed generations of families. Then, in 1988, Earth's Best introduced the first organic baby food. Now it's 2006 and more than 99% of all baby food is still in a jar, with a shelf-life older than the babies eating it. Now, I'd learned enough to know I'd make ALL of her baby food.

And then I noticed something...

As I made fresh baby food for Olivia, family and friends' wanted my baby food for their children, too. Soon, I realized there were many busy parents who don't always have the time or the energy to make freshly-prepared, organic and kosher baby food for their babies. My husband and I wanted to help.

Homemade Baby was inspired by our passion for feeding every baby the most nutritious, delicious food available. After three years of research, and surrounding ourselves with an internationally renowned microbiologist, food technician, pediatric nutritionist and operations consultant, we opened four state-of-the-art kitchens with an attached Baby Food Tasting Room, in Culver City.

Now parents can visit our Tasting Room and share a nutritional experience with their children as they enjoy free samples of our freshly-prepared, 100% certified organic baby food, and meet our Le Cordon Bleu Executive Chef, Troy Irvin. We want to share this experience with other babies by donating 15% of the food out of our kettle straight to charities that serve undernourished children.

You can also find us at Whole Foods in the refrigerator, next to the baby yogurts. Which brings me back to that fateful three-minute pitch to the President of Whole Foods...