Reagan is still primarily on breastmilk, but she does get the opportunity to eat solids almost every day. We mostly give her fresh fruits and veggies while we’re sitting around the table eating dinner, but I’ve also started sending homemade purees with Reagan to the sitter. I didn’t expect Reagan to actually eat much (if any) of the puree, she normally only eats a few bites here and there from me, but thought it would be good if she had something she could eat while the big kids were eating. Strangely enough, Reagan normally finishes her entire container of food when she’s at the sitters! Because of this, I’ve actually been getting some decent use out of our Baby Brezza!
The Baby Brezza is a handy appliance that steams and purees food. The settings allow you to select a cooking time and then choose whether you want to steam, puree, or do both to the food. I know I could do all this without a special gadget, but as a working Mom who barely has time to take care of the essentials, the set-it and forget it all in one Brezza really makes my life a lot easier. Yes, I could buy jars of baby food and make my life even easier, but as a family we decided we did not want to give Reagan processed, pre-made baby food.
Here’s the process for making carrot puree for Reagan:
1. I started with a $1.50 bag of carrots and selected two large ones. I then washed, peeled, and cut 1.5 of them into chunks. The other 1/2 was sliced for Reagan’s dinner.

Fresh bag of carrots
2. The carrot chunks went into the Baby Brezza and I locked the lid into place. I filled the steam tank with bottled water (it only takes a few ounces) and set the Brezza to steam for 25 minutes and then puree.

1.5 large carrots cut up and steaming
While the carrots were steaming, I cleaned the kitchen and Reagan hung out in her highchair and played with some spaghetti noodles from dinner. She’d already eaten/chewed on an apple slice, raw carrot sticks, and cucumber slices while we were having dinner.

Reagan playing with spaghetti noodles while Mommy cleans up the kitchen and makes carrot puree!
3. After steaming for 25 minutes, the Baby Brezza automatically pureed the carrots to the perfect texture.

Carrots steamed and pureed!

Pureed carrots!
4. The last step is to pour them into containers. I use the OXO Tot Baby blocks freezable baby food containers and have been pretty happy with them.

Carrot puree divided up into the reusable/freezable baby food containers

All ready!
Right now Reagan is only eating 3-4 containers of food a week, so it’s easier to make these small batches so that way she’s getting fresh puree that hasn’t been frozen.
And now for the math!
- Jar of processed baby food is $0.32/oz –>$0.80 per 2.5 oz jar –> $0.80/2.5 oz = $0.32/oz
- Container of fresh pureed carrots is $0.04/oz–> $1.50/8 carrots in a bag = $0.1875 per carrot; the cost for 1.5 carrots is 1.5 X $0.1875 = $0.28125; 1.5 carrots were pureed into four 2 oz containers of fresh carrot puree, so 1.5 carrots = 8 oz of puree; the cost of the 1.5 carrots divided by the total ounces of puree it created = $0.28125/8 oz = $0.0351/oz = rounded to $0.04/oz
From my calculations, processed baby food is 8 times more expensive than making fresh baby food. **Side note: It might be more or less depending on the type of food**
Yet, to make it easier on me, I also bought the Baby Brezza and some freezable containers. Thus, the next question is how many oz of baby food will I need to make with the Brezza in order to break even?
Break even formula: $109.94 + $0.04 (X) = $0.32 (X)
- $109.94 = Baby Breeza ($99.95) + OXO storage containers ($9.99)
- $0.04 = the cost per ounce of homemade baby food
- $0.32 = the cost per ounce of processed baby food
- X = number of ounces of baby food
Doing the algebra from the break even formula (or by graphing both and finding the intersection point), I need to make 393 ounces (rounded to the nearest ounce from 392.64 oz) of homemade baby food to break even. So far I’ve probably made close to 40 ounces of baby food, which leaves 353 ounces left!! That seems like a lot of baby food, especially since Reagan doesn’t eat a lot of solid food, but on the high side I’ve also used the Brezza to steam veggies for adult use! 🙂
Overall, regardless of the price or cost, we feel giving Reagan fresh non-processed food is healthier for her and better for her developing taste buds!