Costco: 10 BLW Foods to Buy from Costco

Katie Ferraro (1m 34s):

Sometimes you can find the whole intact mangoes, depends you know geographically where you're located and what time of year it is and they will occasionally have it in a jar, but oftentimes that has it's packed. And when added sugar, it's in syrup. So we don't want any added sugars for babies, but they always have the precut mango slices that are already peeled and already off the pit in the plastic clamshells, but they are rock hard. So you've got to poach the pieces of mango, but it's super easy to do. It just takes about five to 10 minutes till you get them fork tender. Super easy way to serve your baby a new fruit, which is Mango from Costco. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning here on the baby-led Weaning Made Easy podcast.

Katie Ferraro (2m 18s):

I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning. This episode is for the Costco fans. If you are a Costco member and you have a baby, there are a surprising number of foods at Costco that work for baby led weaning. Now, we recently covered Costco back in episode 278. I had Henry from the Instagram account, Costco deals on the podcast to kind of give some like insight and fun fact stuff about Costco, but we didn't actually go through like the specific foods.

Katie Ferraro (2m 59s):

So in this episode today, I want to share 10 foods that work for baby-led weaning that you can buy at Costco. And one thing that I'm always amazed by at Costco is the fact that they make most of their revenue comes from membership sales. Like they make a small amount on the merchandise, which the notion there being that you can't always get what you want at Costco, but when you're there, whatever there is, there is probably a really good deal. And so Costco exists I think in like 14 countries at this point. They have about 850 stores kind of concentrated in the United States. More than 580 of those stores are in the United States. And the greatest number of stores is in the state of California.

Katie Ferraro (3m 39s):

So I live in San Diego and I have seven kids. So I definitely shop at Costco. I share a lot on social and stuff that I don't really go to Costco a ton anymore. I definitely am an Instacart fan. And my sister who's super frugal, she's like, I can't believe that you pay all the marked up prices on Instacart. And I was like, my argument is I have to get two babysitters in order to go to the grocery store by myself. Taking all seven kids into Costco is not feasible for me at this stage in my life. And I say that I don't do any impulse buying when I'm at Costco because like when you line it up on Instacart, the only thing the Instacart shopper's allowed to buy is what's on the list. So it works for me, but I just love some of the options at Costco.

Katie Ferraro (4m 20s):

And so this is part of a series that I'm doing on five different grocery stores where we're running through a grocery list if you're gonna run to that store. Costco today is the episode, but we did in episode 317, we went to Trader Joe's in episode 321. I'm gonna be going to Sprouts 323 to Walmart and 325 to Whole Foods sharing 10 different foods that you can buy from Costco. And so the way I'm gonna do this is the first five foods on the list are gonna be directly from my hundred first foods list. So if you are working your baby through a hundred different foods before they turn one using my list, you might also be using my five step feeding framework. This is part kinda the backbone of my hundred first Foods program whereby we introduce five new foods each week to your baby.

Katie Ferraro (5m 1s):

We do a new fruit on Monday, a new vegetable on Tuesday, a new starchy food on Wednesday, a new protein food on Thursday, and an allergenic food on Friday. So the first five foods in this list are gonna be coming from the hundred first foods list. And then the second five foods are just kind of some random grab bag Costco fines that also work well for baby-led weaning, not necessarily from the hundred first foods list, but in some cases they are. So let's go ahead and get started with 10 baby led weaning foods to buy from Costco. Alright, first and foremost favorite fruit of Costco for babies. Hands down is the mango. So they have mango in a couple of different options at Costco, depending upon what season it is, you sometimes can find whole mangoes and then depending upon regionally where you are, those are different varieties of mangoes.

Katie Ferraro (5m 44s):

So yes, you can wait till they get ripe and you can peel them and you can cut them into strips about the size of your adult pinky finger. I however, am a huge fan of the pre-packaged mango strips. So Costco has these year round, they're kind of like, like big peach slices almost, I would say, right? Mango being bright yellow on the inside, they're shaped in wedges and so they're already peeled and they're already off the pit, which is why I love them a little bit pricier per pound. But again, I think sometimes there are convenience foods worth paying for. And the ones that are at Costco right now just happen to be a brand called Endless Summer Hippie Organics. And it changes, right, depending upon where you are located, but they're in a plastic clamshell and they're never ripe enough for babies ever.

Katie Ferraro (6m 28s):

They're like rock hard when you buy 'em and you can't feed any hard crunchy or crispy foods to babies. So mangoes are definitely one of the foods that I frequently will poach for babies, meaning that I'll cut them down in two pieces, a little bit bigger than the size of my adult pinky finger and then I'll poach them in a little bit of water. So if this idea of poaching is new to you, we did recently cover poaching on the podcast. If you go back to episode 315, it's called poaching foods. Make these five foods safer for your baby by poaching. I talk a little bit more about poaching mangoes in there. My next favorite food number two on the list, if we're moving through the five step feeding framework after the fruit mango, if you're looking for a new vegetable, spinach is a great one to get from Costco.

Katie Ferraro (7m 19s):

When you buy fresh spinach at your regular grocery store in the bagged salad section, it tends to be like five bucks for usually like a very small bag. So a quarter of a pound at Costco, the one pound bag is generally around $5. Obviously that fluctuates. So right now at my Costco in San Diego, there's a one pound bag of organic baby spinach. It's pre-washed. I have a brother-in-law who has family members who work in the Salinas Valley and they run a lot of the lettuce in that industry and their suggestion is even if it says washed and double washed, you should wash it yourself at home. So I always re-wash it, even though it says pre-wash.

Katie Ferraro (7m 59s):

And when it comes to spinach, we don't serve raw leafy greens to babies. That's not safe. But one of my favorite recipes for baby-led weaning of all time is to make pollock paneer. So it's an Indian spinach dish with a lot of wonderful flavors, kind of like a creamed spinach that you then get to a consistency that's safe for babies to eat. So if you get my weekly newsletter, I always send a baby-led weaning recipe of the week. If you want to get some of these recipes, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter, I'll put the link in the description. But baby-led weaning pollock paneer is awesome and a l, it takes a lot of raw leafy spinach to kind of write a really high water vegetable, right?

Katie Ferraro (8m 41s):

So it takes a lot volume-wise to kind of cook down into any significant amount. And spinach is an iron rich food, but you're probably aware that the amount of iron and the absorbability of iron from plant foods is different from that of animal food. So you kind of need a lot more spinach to basically equate to the amount of iron that you would find in a small piece of let's say beef, but it's not to discount spinach by any means. But I like this recipe cuz it's kind of a concentrated source of spinach when you cook it down. And a nice affordable way to get that is from the bagged spinach at Costco. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (10m 25s):

Alright, moving along to number three on the list of foods I love from Costco. It's time for a starchy food and oatmeal is in abundance at Costco in the cereal aisle at my Costco this week, I found three different types of oatmeal that were great for baby-led weaning. I'm a traditionalist, I'm a fan of Quaker Oats. I just buy the 100% whole grain old-fashioned oats, super simple. There's no added sugar, there's no added salt, and there's one and a half milligrams of iron in a serving. So one of the benefits and why we do so many whole grains for babies and there's 20 different starchy foods in the starchy food list of the hundred first foods list and many of those are whole grains and oats are.

Katie Ferraro (11m 8s):

One is that they do contain iron, they also have some plant-based protein in there and some fiber. And I love oatmeal as a way to, it's kinda a vehicle for lots of other foods that we use inside of our program. And if you're not sure how to serve your baby oatmeal, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the episode all about oatmeal. It's episode 47. It's called Oatmeal, how Your Baby Can Safely Self-Feed Oatmeal. But there are other brands, there's an organic brand at Costco, there's actually two different organic brands and then the traditional Quaker Oats. So there's lots of option for unsweetened, unsalted oatmeal. We generally don't do those instant oatmeal packs because they tend to have added sugar, but you can make good old fashioned oatmeal for your baby.

Katie Ferraro (11m 51s):

It's a wonderful carbohydrate source. Alright, right next up on the Costco grocery list. We're moving to day four of the week, we're gonna do a new protein food. Rib meat is one of my favorite meats on our hundred first foods list in the protein section. And the ribs at Costco are awesome. I think they're the most consistently meaty ribs that I know I can find. And there's certainly the most affordable. So I like the spare ribs from Costco. They tend to have more meat and more fat. I get the pork spare ribs. There's a lot in rack of ribs I think you know, most of them are around. I was looking at yesterday like 12 pound racks of ribs. So this is like, you know, if you're cooking for a one baby, it might be a little bit, I'm a little bit much, but let's say you're having like lots of people over, you know ribs are wonderful because they're soft shreddable strips of meat that your baby can easily pick up and feed to themselves.

Katie Ferraro (12m 42s):

If you need more tips on how to make meat safe, I teach about it in my free online workshop called Baby led Weaning for Beginners. That's where I also give away my copy of that original a hundred first foods list. So if you don't have a copy of the a hundred first foods list, sign up for the one hour online video workshop@babyledweaning.co. We talk a ton more about making meat safe to eat there, but if your family does eat animal foods, I would encourage you to offer those foods early and often. Like meats and pork spare ribs are a wonderful way to offer your baby rib meat. On the fifth day of each week, we introduce a new allergenic food and there's lots of allergenic food options at Costco, so it was kind of hard to pick, but I really like their almond butter.

Katie Ferraro (13m 23s):

So almond butter is one way that you can offer your baby the potentially allergenic food tree nut, but we don't offer thick gloves of nut butters or intact nuts to babies because that could be a choking hazard. But you can thin out nut butters like almond butter so that it gets nice and thin and falls easily off of your adult spoon. And then that's an indicator that it's going to be thin enough for your baby to clear from the roof and the sides of their mouth and not stick on there and become a choking hazard. So at Costco the Kirkland signature organic creamy almond butter is perfect because it doesn't have any added sugar and it doesn't have any added salt. So you're kind of getting the gist here that when we're reading our labels of packaged foods that we're going to offer to baby, my general rule of thumb is I'm looking for less than a hundred milligrams of sodium per serving.

Katie Ferraro (14m 9s):

But when it comes to nut butters, I also know that there's ones out there we don't need to add any added salt. So what I love about the Costco almond butter is that it just contains in the ingredient list organic roasted almonds. And then I'll thin that out with either applesauce, that's unsweetened applesauce, which unfortunately they don't carry at Costco anymore, at least as far as in California, which is a total bummer cuz they used to always get the big things of applesauce there. You can find unsweetened apple sauce, you know any other grocery store, but you can thin out the almond butter with that or you can do it with breast milk or formula again, get it nice and thin and then you can offer it to your baby off of a preloaded spoon and it's a great way to get your baby that potentially allergenic food Trina. All right, so the five foods from the hundred first foods list that I would grab a Costco I was starting this week, I would get the fruit, I would get mango for their vegetable, I would do spinach for the carbohydrate or starchy food, I would do oatmeal for the protein food, I would do rib meat.

Katie Ferraro (14m 58s):

And then for the allergenic food I would grab some of the almond butter. Now for five other kind of random grab bag Costco, things that I routinely buy for baby-led weanie, I love the Costco paneer. So paneer is, paneer can go either way, right? So generally used in Indian dishes, I was talking about Palak paneer. So I, I bought a couple big bags of this spinach and I make my family Palak paneer this week. A lot of times if and if I don't have paneer at my regular grocery store and depending on what store you're at, they might not have it, but it's kind of, it's like some people refer to it as cottage cheese, but like I don't think so at all because cottage cheese is like a mealy lumpy texture and then also has tons and tons of salt in it. Paneer is like a block of cheese, but some paneer have tons of salt in them.

Katie Ferraro (15m 42s):

But the one that they carry at Costco, the brand Verka, V E R K A, it only has 10 milligrams of salt in it, which is awesome cuz it's in way that you can introduce your baby to cow's milk protein, right? Because it's a dairy product but without a ton of added salt, right? It's one of the problems with a lot of cheeses is that they have too much salt. So paneer is amazing because it's a nice soft cheese with no added salt in most cases do just be careful to read your label cuz some other brands will have added salt. But consistently at Costco, the paneer does not have added salt, which I love. So an easy way to introduce your baby to cows milk frozen. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (16m 60s):

Okay, they also have bison at Costco and we have bison on the hundred first foods list. And depending upon where you live in the country, some families are like, oh yeah, we have bison everywhere. And other families are like, Hmm, where do I get bison again? I live in San Diego guys, I'm not hunting bison on the reg, but I love the all natural ground bison. That's from Costco. The particular brand that's there right now called Great Range is raised without antibiotics and no added hormones. And if you're like, I'm not really sure about feeding my baby game meat, actually did an entire episode on game meat and that is called Game Meat, how to Offer Babies Game Meat Safely. That's episode 117.

Katie Ferraro (17m 40s):

If you wanna learn more about why you might wanna feed your baby bison. All right, another kind of random whole grain that they always have at Costco is quinoa. And I know you can get quinoa everywhere, but I have it on my hundred first foods list. And there's not a ton of other whole grain options at Costco. I think there's kind of a lot of refined not so great white carbohydrates at Costco. So when you can find a whole grade one, go for it. I like the quinoa at Costco, good source of iron, it's got that plant protein in there and some fiber plus it's pretty affordable. It's like less than $9 for a massive size bag. And sometimes like that's how much a smaller bag at Trader Joe's or, or Sprouts is. So it's kind of a good value for a whole grain there. When it comes to the quinoa, there also are some good options in the dairy aisle.

Katie Ferraro (18m 22s):

So I was just looking at the goat cheese for example. Again, general rule of thumb as I'm looking for less than a hundred milligrams of sodium in any of the packaged foods that I'm buying for a baby. And cheese can be a little bit hard. Your softer cheeses tend to be lower in sodium. So check out the goat cheese at Costco. The particular brand that happened to be at my Costco this week had exactly a hundred milligrams. And again, that's in a in a one ounce serving, so your baby's not necessarily going to eat all of that. But also they have mozzarella, they do have feta at Costco, but it's very, very high in salt. So choose the goat cheese or the mozzarella that's lower. And then last up if you need another allergenic food. The peanut butter at Costco is awesome because same thing as their almond butter, it doesn't have any added sugar, it doesn't have any added salt.

Katie Ferraro (19m 4s):

So there's an organic Kirkland Creamy peanut butter, right? We don't do crunchy peanut butters for babies, no added sugar. Oh, it does have just a smidge of salt. Sorry, correction there. The almond butter has no salt. The peanut butter has 65 milligrams, again, it's less than a hundred, so it's fine. So in summary, 10 foods I would get from Costco, the mango, this spin, the oatmeal, the rib meat, and the almond butter. If you're needing to pick five foods off of the a hundred first foods list for this week. And while you're there, I also like the paneer, the bison, the quinoa, the goat cheese, and the peanut butter. I'll link up pictures to all of these. Well, actually, our fabulous intern Aliza is gonna be making the show notes for you for this episode. If you go to b lw podcast.com/three 19, you can find everything there, including the link to sign up for that free baby-led weaning for beginners workshop.

Katie Ferraro (19m 47s):

If you wanna learn more about how to make these foods safe for baby-led weaning and grab a copy of that hundred first foods list and thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave Media. We're online@blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.