In the not-so-distant past, parents fed their kids food that was quick, convenient or provoked the least amount of complaining. Unfortunately that approach contributed to the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes we see today. Now there is a real push for healthy eating. A vegetable garden at the White House, healthier federal school lunch guidelines and a plethora of “healthy foods” cookbooks geared toward families are hallmarks of this new way of eating right. Regrettably, we are just as busy as ever, and kids who are unfamiliar with fresh veggies and whole grains may turn up their noses when first presented with these good-for-you foods. In fact, experts often recommend that parents offer a wide variety of healthy foods as soon as babies are ready for solids to teach good nutrition from the beginning.
Luckily, busy parents now have the good folks at Madison-based YumTum Organic Baby Food and Healthy Toddler Snacks to help set kids on the path to healthy eating. YumTum came to be when two new moms, Jacy Eckerman and Heidi Speight, realized the baby food available in stores fell far short of the kinds of foods they wanted to feed their babies. In a press release, Eckerman states, “When it was time to start feeding our 6-month-old babies, we were disappointed to learn that, as working moms, we couldn’t find store-bought baby food that was as healthy and wholesome as what we could make at home.”
Making your own baby food can be a time-consuming task, and jarred foods are usually extremely processed or packed with sugar and sodium. So, Eckerman and Speight decided to turn their desire to change the way people think of baby food into a business, giving busy parents another option.
YumTum baby food is sourced from local Wisconsin farms that follow organic standards. Instead of boiling the nutrients out, YumTum gently steams their products and then quickly freezes them to keep the goodness in. They also use lots of “superfoods” like kale, flax meal and blueberries to up the nutritional value.
The prices of YumTum products are pretty comparable to traditional jarred foods too, ranging from $0.50 to $0.66 a serving.
“Beginning eaters are a blank slate—now is the time to introduce kale and quinoa, flax and sunbutter. These superfoods will set them up for a lifetime of healthy eating and power them through any picky toddler years you might encounter in the future,” Speight states in the same press release.
For more information, to order online or to find a store that carries YumTum products near you, visit yumtumdelivers.com.
