Jeff,

I had my firstborn when I was nearly 36 years old. Today is her second birthday and she is a fairly good eater, though she did go through a picky spell a couple of months back and still has her picky moments. On the other hand, she eats a wide range of fruits and vegetables, including oddballs like avocado, radishes, and onions. She still isn't too fond of meat or eggs, though she does like roast chicken.

I think one reason she likes her fruits and veggies is that I very rarely fed her prepared baby foods, except for the iron fortified boxed cereal powder which we introduced as her first 'solid' food on the advice of her pediatrician. When it came time to introduce fruits, vegetables, and meats, we used our blender to make natural baby food based on what we were eating for dinner. It is well worth the time spent, and so much cheaper than those little jars. Plus you know the ingredients are healthy, no sugar, and low sodium. You can also make extra each night and freeze it in little ice cube containers to use later in the week (though I never tried that). As the baby grows and develops teeth, you just process it less so that it gets chunkier like the stage 2 and 3 foods.

Why don't you purchase and taste a jar of Gerber green beans and another of meat and see how yucky they taste. That should help convince you to 'go natural'.

Rant time:
I am personally appalled by the prepackaged toddler meals that you can find on the grocery shelves these days. They are loaded with preservatives and sodium and white flour carbs. Not to mention the baby snacks - the occasional zweiback cracker or low sugar whole wheat organic cookie is good for teething, but do toddlers need sugar packed granola type 'fruit' bars? And apple flavored 'chips' that have very little fruit but plenty of sugar in them? I think not. The grocery store was out of organic full fat yogurt so I bought Trix the other day. I tasted it and found it sickeningly sweet. Needless to say, she doesn't get that anymore: now I get unsweetened natural yogurt and flavor it with fruit and a little honey or else give it to her plain.

Warning: Kids learn young...the first day I switched, she kept saying 'bunny' when I fed her the healthy stuff. Trix...bunny, yikes!!! Worse yet, she could recognize and point to the Pillsbury dough boy when she was barely a year old...and I never even bought that crap!