How to Store Baby Food?

You don’t need to spend hours in the kitchen preparing a new food for your baby every day! You can prepare a lot of food at once and safely store it and present it to your baby. For this, you should learn how to store baby food.

We have told you how to store the food without spoiling it and preserving its freshness!

How to store baby food?

All mothers have a common question when embarking on this task, and that is where baby food is stored. You can store all the baby foods you have prepared, such as fruit and vegetable puree or soup, in the deep freezer. In this way, you can save time because you will not be making food again and again, and you can save money as the rate of food going to waste will decrease. So, how to store baby food, now let’s move on to that part.

• Prepare the foods that you feed your baby frequently in the amount that you can stock for about 1-2 months. Bring an ice tray, greaseproof paper, small plastic containers or ziplock bags with you to store them after you’ve prepared them.

• Let your prepared food cool down to room temperature.
• When the food is at room temperature, place it in the refrigerator to prevent bacteria from growing on it and cool it thoroughly. After this step, you need to put the food in the deep freezer. If you are going to use an ice cube tray or small plastic cups, just fill the molds and cover them.
• If you are going to use ziplock bags, you need to vacuum or squeeze out all the air in the bag.
• If you are going to use greaseproof paper, put the food on it piece by piece with the help of a spoon and cover it with cling film.
• Although small glass jars may seem very convenient for storing food, they are not! Because these jars are not designed to be frozen, they may explode due to expansion in the freezer.
• In order to understand what is in the containers or bags and their freshness, stick a label on them and write the information on this label.

By the way, there is one more thing we should mention. You should know that homemade preserves that you prepare with summer foods and that you think you will feed your baby in winter are not safe. Because you will be bottling these cans while they are very hot and storing them without freezing. In this case, bacteria that can cause diseases occur in canned food, and there may even be a risk of poisoning.

Jar food storage

How to store jar food, let’s talk about it first. You have to put the food in a hot jar and close the lid and turn it upside down. At this point , you might ask, does baby food keep in the fridge? Yes, you can store it in the refrigerator when the food is warm. When you give the formula to your baby, you should heat it and give it in a bain-marie.

So, how long will homemade jar foods last? If you keep it in the refrigerator, try to have your baby consume the formula within 3-4 days. That’s all you need to know about storing homemade jar food!

Is leftover food stored in the fridge?

If the whole food is not finished, you should not use the remaining food, you should pour it. If it has been left at room temperature for 1 hour, the uneaten food should be discarded and replaced with a new one. You can store the formula that you have prepared but not given to your baby for up to 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Can instant foods be frozen?

How to store powdered baby food , you may wonder. Experts do not recommend freezing ready-made formulas and follow-on milk. In fact, the freezing process does not cause any change in the content of the ready-made food. Not recommended because when thawed, the formula separates from the water or milk from which it was prepared.

How will frozen food be thawed?

Thawing food is much more important than freezing! Because when the wrong methods are applied, there is a possibility of spoiling the food. To protect the health of your baby, you can apply the following methods while defrosting:

• Never try to thaw frozen baby food at room temperature and uncovered! Under these conditions, bacteria begin to form on the food immediately.
• The healthiest way to thaw frozen food is to put it in the fridge! When you take the food out of the freezer, don’t leave it outside, put it in the refrigerator section you always use.
• You should do this a long time before feeding your baby formula. Because frozen foods dissolve in about 12 hours, depending on the portion.

• If you want the food to thaw more quickly, you can use a microwave oven. Put a frozen food in a glass bowl and thaw it in the microwave, stirring occasionally. It’s okay to use a microwave for this process, but you should check that the heat is evenly distributed throughout the food.
• You can thaw the food slowly in a pan, under low heat. But be careful not to get hot enough to burn your baby’s mouth at the end of the process.
• You can store thawed food in the refrigerator for a maximum of 2 days.
• You should not refreeze the thawed food.

Knowing the right temperature is essential!

Just as temperature is important in freezing and thawing, it is just as important in cooking! It is especially necessary to cook meat foods at the right temperature and to keep the food away from bacteria!

• Ground beef, beef and lamb at 75°C,
• White meat 71°C,
• Pieces of meat such as lamb chops are fully cooked at 75°C. You can use a meat thermometer to measure this temperature.

Bacteria can grow in food between 4°C and 60°C. What we call room temperature coincides exactly with this range. Therefore, you should either ensure that your baby consumes the foods you cook immediately or move them to the refrigerator without waiting.