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201 Organic Baby and Toddler Meals by Tamika L. Gardner

201 Organic Baby and Toddler Meals by Tamika L. Gardner

With 201 Organic Baby and Toddler Meals by Tamika L. Gardner you can be sure your growing child eats the most nourishing meals nature can offer, made from the freshest, healthiest ingredients possible.  Inside Tamika Gardner, founder of the simply baby food recipes blog, has curated tasty, wholesome recipes for growing babies and toddlers from 9 months to 3 years old.  Every recipe is built to make a parent’s life less complicated—whether made for freezing later or making a family-friendly dish that will satisfy the whole table.

As simple to prepare as they are nutritious, these yummy baby and toddler meals include:

  • Chilled White Grape Peach Soup
  • Crunchy Green Beans
  • Creamy Spinach Pita Pizza
  • Orange Chicken Stir-Fry
  • Cinnamon Pineapple Crumble
  • Kale Chips
  • Baby Cobb Salad
  • Cheeseburger Soup
  • Homemade Toaster Pastries
  • Cauliflower Dressed in Orange

 I fed both my girls homemade baby-food and in general made them with organic vegetables and fruit.   I have to pre-face this by saying that I have no objection to conventional farming methods and I usually only buy organic for the girls just in case. I do homemade baby-food because I can control what they are eating better and it is far cheaper than buying jars of premade purees and sodium filled baby food trays.  I was kind of excited to get this title for some new ideas.  

The book includes a list of the “toxic twenty”, produce that tends to have the largest pesticide load.  The list is useful, especially if you can’t afford to go fully organic, you can at least purchase the items on the list organic only.  The author does explain how to go organic affordably, what tools you will need, and more information about eating healthy.

The book does contain plenty of images, although I do wish there were more.  I’m very visual and like to flip through cookbooks to find something to try versus just reading through and this cookbook doesn’t really facilitate that kind of “reading”.

There are tons of great recipes included, (201!) and does cover transition foods right up to toddler friendly eats.  I was disappointed, however, to find liberal use of salt and sugar throughout the book.  Babies do not need salt in their diet, and their kidneys cannot cope with more than 1g of salt a day.  There is no good for adding salt to home-cooked baby food, even if you think it tastes bland, baby will still like it (or you know hate it either way)!  This cookbook does offer plenty of recipe ideas however, and they can be modified to leave out the harmful ingredients used.  It’s just unfortunate the author chose to include them in the first place.

 

Tamika L. Gardner (Raleigh-Durham, NC) began crafting homemade baby food as a new mother of two seeking to provide fresh meals beyond what any jar on the shelf could offer. She used her talents and passion to document her baby food recipes on her blog, SimplyBabyFoodRecipes.net.

After four years of advocating fresh purees from scratch, she fulfilled her dream of becoming an author and wrote her first best-selling book “201 Organic Baby Purees” in 2012 with Adams Media. Her organic recipes have been featured on ABC News, iVillage.com, MetroParent, Raleigh News and Observer, Fayetteville News, BlogHer.com, The Stir and Dot Coms For Moms. 

As her children began to grow out of purees, she was faced with a new dilemma of offering toddler-friendly meals to her own child with food allergies and other health concerns. This began a new journey of developing delicious meals that catered to those needs.  Her mission is to encourage parents to nurture healthy children through fresh, whole foods from farm to table.

Kamille

Saturday 16th of April 2016

Really? I wouldn't consider 1/4 tsp or 1/8 tsp of salt harmful especially when you have to consider the amount of servings the recipes make. It is not enough to worry about or write a bad review over. Those things can be left out altogether if you are making it yourself...which is the beauty of homemade. This book doesn't seem to be for young babies either. The cheeseburger soup does sound amazing and something I would serve my 2 year old along with a smidgeon of salt. Not going to kill anyone.

Victoria Ess

Thursday 9th of July 2015

This would be a great book for parents!

kathy downey

Friday 27th of February 2015

Cheeseburger soup,omg this has to be delicious

Yvette

Thursday 19th of February 2015

With food allergies inthe family a person can't be too cautious and it all begins with proper nutrition.

heidi c.

Saturday 14th of February 2015

I wish that I had been more adventuresome when it came to feeding my kids as babies. Maybe they would have been less picky today. I wish that I had had this cookbook!