Target: 10 BLW Foods to Buy from Target

Katie Ferraro (0s):

I have a baby Ezra update for you. So that's the little baby seven month old guy. I've been making all of his hundred first foods for baby led weaning. We're heading into week four, So I, can't believe it. He's almost 20 foods in. He's almost 20% of the way to a hundred first foods. And I've been sharing all the different foods that we're making five new foods a week following my five step feeding framework. So I'm actually following my own 100 First Foods daily meal plan making this baby five new foods a week. So I wanna tell you about week four in case you've just gotten started in the last month or so with baby-led weaning or you started and you're feeling stuck, like you just feel like you're feeding the same foods to your baby. Over and over here are the five new foods that we did in week four from the 100 First Foods daily meal plan.

Katie Ferraro (43s):

This is all part of my Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I've been updating the weekly menu and the grocery list, refining the recipes to offer easier and more streamlined ways to make all of these recipes. 'cause this should not take a ton of time. And so my goal every week, I'm so proud, I've just been like getting less and less and less and less time on the food prep and making it easier for parents to be able to implement with their babies as well. So week four, new fruit of the week, we're doing banana. you can just do banana strips, the size of your adult pinky finger. Do not feed banana peel to you guys, to your baby. Like you guys, you don't eat bananas with the peel. Please don't offer it to your baby. It's a huge choking hazard. We have a really cool banana, nice cream recipe that you can do a frozen banana product if your baby's teething, they love these, you do it off of a preloaded spoon or out of an open cup.

Katie Ferraro (1m 25s):

On Tuesday we have a new vegetable. This week we're gonna be doing beets personally, not my favorite food. I was like gagging when I was cooking it. So I kinda. My kids were like, mom, the house smells like beets and I know you hate beets, but we do these balsamic beet strips for babies. They freaking love them, even though I think they smell gross. Wednesday, new starchy food of the week. We're doing corn. And so for early eaters, we don't do corn on the cob. Corn meal is a great food for your baby. I'm making these polenta strips, but polenta that you buy, the grocery store has way too much salt But. It's so easy to make it home. Then you fry 'em into these little patties and then little finger foods your babies can pick up and they try corn that way on Thursday. The new protein of the week is chicken. I'm doing my chicken adobo recipe. We've been working on this one four years babies love it.

Katie Ferraro (2m 4s):

Everyone. Everyone in my family loves this one too. And I hope that Baby Ezra likes it as well. And then the new Allergenic food of the week that we're gonna do on Friday is pasta. So that's the way that we introduce the baby to the potentially Allergenic food wheat. So if you want to follow the same 100 First Foods daily meal plan that we're doing, it's all part of my Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I give you the exact sequence of foods to feeds, as well as have a weekly menu. There's daily recipes, there's a grocery list. I literally took all of the guesswork out of it for you. you can learn how to safely prepare each of the foods very quickly 'cause I want your baby to eat a hundred foods before turning one. you can follow this exact meal plan. Try all the new foods too when you sign up at babyledweaning.co/program. Again, that's babyledweaning.co/program and I hope to see you there.

Katie Ferraro (3m 14s):

The boneless pork shoulder butt roast at Target is awesome because not only does it make a significant quantity of meat, like I'm gonna have enough meat to feed this baby throughout the week as I need it to follow the meal plan. But then I'm also gonna have ample quantity to make poor carnitas for our family one night. And if you look at the price, this is around $3 a pound, which is a pretty good value for a protein food that your baby's gonna get a lot of exposure to. 'cause we're gonna make those nice soft shreddable strips that are safe for your baby to eat even from their first bites. 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. 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.

Katie Ferraro (4m 8s):

I know moms love target and if you do your grocery shopping at Target and you have a baby, you are in luck because today I'm sharing 10 baby-led weaning foods to buy from Target. Now this is the second part of a series of grocery store episodes that we did. So back in the like 317 to 325, those episodes I covered Trader Joe's and Costco Sprouts Farmer Market, Walmart and Whole Foods. So if you do shop at other grocery stores, what I'm trying to do is share different ideas and different foods in all of these episodes. And the foods that I'm gonna identify today aren't necessarily foods that you quote unquote can't get anywhere else. 'cause as you know, like the grocery selection at Target is not extensive.

Katie Ferraro (4m 51s):

It gets you through. I have a sister-in-law who's like, I love grocery shopping at Target. And I'm like, oh, anytime I find myself grocery shopping at Target, it's like jokes on me. It's a little pricier than some of the other grocery stores in my town, but it's like convenient. It's right by school. If I forgot something, are we already there? I'll stop and grab something. But I would argue, at least in my personal case, target is not my primary place to shop and it certainly doesn't have all of the foods from our 100 First Foods list. But I know you guys shop at different stores too. So I. Just wanna share a real life example of what I did today because I am making foods at the time of this recording for Baby Ezra. I'm doing his entire a 100 First Foods plan. He's my friend Carissa's baby. And so every weekend on Sunday, I'm prepping the five next foods for that next week.

Katie Ferraro (5m 35s):

So I'm following my own hundred first days meal plan. We introduce five foods a week. We do a new fruit on Monday. We do a new vegetable on Tuesday. We do a starchy food on Wednesday, a protein food on Thursday and an Allergenic food on Friday. So last week I did a different grocery store for week one, but I'm wanted to order everything ahead of time on the Target app and just go and pick it up. So I went through and got the five foods for this week, as well as some of the other ingredients from our hundred first days meal plan in order to do the prep in as short of a time as possible on Sunday. If you wanna check out my original a hundred first days meal plan, it's part of my baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro program. You not only get access to my a 100 First Foods content library so you can learn all about how to make these foods with the exact meal plan if you want, like a day by day of wet foods to feed your baby.

Katie Ferraro (6m 23s):

We give you the grocery list and the menu and the recipes. It's kind of a no-brainer and I took all of the work out of it for you. you can learn more and get the meal plan and the program if you go to baby led weaning dot co slash program. We're on week two with Baby Ezra. So the five new foods of the week that we're doing this week, I'm gonna share which item at Target I got for these. Alright, for the new Fruit of the day, week two, the fruit that we're supposed to do in the meal plan says apples. So this is super easy. Obviously you could get apples anywhere. I live in San Diego, California. I buy the organic apples from Target. The reason being not that the organic ones are any more nutritious than the conventionally grown ones, I just enjoy the way they taste.

Katie Ferraro (7m 6s):

I can tell the difference between an organic apple and a conventional apples, especially here in California where I would argue our apples are not very great. Now of course they're coming from all around the country and gosh knows where the food's actually coming from when you're shopping at Target. But I do like their organic snacking apples especially 'cause they're a little bit on the smaller size. I don't know about you, but my bigger kids, they think they like apples and they eat apples, they ask for apples. And then I find like half eaten apples all around my house. So the smaller the size of apple I can find works best for them. And I'm also gonna be making these apples for baby Ezra using our cinnamon poached apple strips. Recipe apples are a huge choking hazard for Babies. We never offer raw, crunchy or crispy apples, but if you soften them by poaching them, you can make 'em really safe so that your baby can pick it up and eat it.

Katie Ferraro (7m 52s):

Ezra's gonna be six months plus two weeks here in week two, and I'm hoping he'll love the apples from Target. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (9m 10s):

The new vegetable of the week that's coming up in week two is squash So. we have chayote squash on our 100 First Foods list under the vegetable category, but we also have squash, meaning you can take it in any direction that you want. I personally love butternut squash for babies. There's two options at Target. They're not whole butternut squash. I have to say that one of my least favorite kitchen tasks is cutting up butternut squash. I like, I feel like I break my hand every time I try to slice through a butternut squash. But frozen butternut squash, they've done all the prep work for you. So there's two types of butternut squash from the target brand. Good and gather one are butternut squash chunks. They're not my absolute favorite because they're a little bit too short for many babies to pick up, but in a pinch I can work 'em into other recipes.

Katie Ferraro (9m 56s):

I also can just cook 'em and cut 'em and see if the baby can pick it up and feed it to themselves. It's not like a very small piece of food. So I'm not particularly worried about it. They also have the spirals. I don't love the spirals for earlier eaters, but I will work the spirals in sometimes for older babies into some of our recipes. Again, they've been peeled and they've been sliced and all you have to do is cook them, which is nice. The butternut squash spirals, I know they're kind of marketing those to adults. It's like 70% less calories than pasta and So I don't really love that. It's like kind of a diet culturey food. But at the end of the day, it's someone else at Target did the prep work for me for butternut squash. So I'm gonna be making sage butternut squash sticks out of the frozen one. I'm also gonna try it a couple of other ways.

Katie Ferraro (10m 36s):

I gotta go get a fresh butternut squash to make some longer pieces in case the baby can't pick up the chunks. But hey, at least you can find squash in the frozen aisle at target, which if you're in a pinch is nice. For day three of week two, we're doing the new starchy food of the day and on our 100 First day's meal plan that ends up being oatmeal. Now obviously you could get oatmeal at pretty much any grocery store. I like the quick cooking oats. So plain old fashioned quick cooking oats. The quick cooking oats just take a little bit less time. But I also will sometimes get the old fashioned ones if they don't have quick cooking. You just have to be careful. 'cause about 90% of the oatmeal that you're gonna find at Target has added sugars and those are not appropriate for babies.

Katie Ferraro (11m 16s):

So a lot of 'em are kind of easy to steer clear of. There were a couple of domestic brands that were both organic and non-organic. Some families are very hellbent on doing organic oats. If that's an option for you and you want to, they have a good selection there. At Target, I'll be making the oatmeal mixed with whole milk cow's milk. So this baby has already been exposed to cow's milk protein, but you could also do it with breast milk or with the formula and it's gonna be a really nice thick, pure texture for the baby to start practicing using the little spoon. The tiny spoon from EZPZ is what we use for baby lead Weaning. I'm gonna do that on the third day of the second week. So that's the starchy food that we're trying this week for the first time, which is oatmeal. And then I love having oatmeal under the baby's belt 'cause you can then kind of use it for like a variety of different things.

Katie Ferraro (11m 59s):

Like it's a medium for like canned pumpkin for example. you can do unsweetened apple sauce added to it. If you're making like pureed figs, you can put it in the oatmeal. Not that you have to, but it's just nice to know, okay, my baby knows how to eat oatmeal and now I can put some more things into it if I am so inclined. On Thursday we do a new protein food of the week. And so the protein for this week is pork. And thankfully Target has a boneless pork shoulder butt, which is my favorite cut of pork to do for babies. I'm gonna be making our baby-led weaning pork carnitas recipe from week two of the a hundred days meal plan. Pork shoulder's also so cheap, so it's like 15 bucks for this big pork butt. And I'm happy because it's not only gonna feed the baby But, it's also gonna feed my family one of our dinner meals next week.

Katie Ferraro (12m 43s):

So I'm like also making food for this baby, but trying to incorporate into my own family's meal since I'm doing the meal prepping on Sunday. And I love a pork butt 'cause this is a definite like set it and forget it recipe. If you're scared of making meat for your baby, I definitely suggest starting with a pork butt. It's so nice to make those soft shreddable strips of meat that are safe for your baby to eat, even with their gums before they have teeth. So that's day four we'll be doing pork. And then on day five, it's time for the new Allergenic Food of the week. This week in week two, the meal plan calls for eggs. Eggs are one of the easiest allergenic foods to offer to babies. And of course you can find them anywhere, but there's quite a good selection at Target. I love to do fried egg strips for babies. So I'll offer the egg a couple of different ways to baby Ezra.

Katie Ferraro (13m 26s):

But there's a nice selection from, again, that target brand good and gather, which is also quite affordable. They have a bigger sized bag of hard cooked eggs. Sometimes at stores you can find hard cooked eggs with. They're like in a two pack. And again, I guess if you're just making the eggs once and offering it to a baby, that's fine. But I like to have a bigger selection. So I can try the cuts a couple of different ways. And then also we're gonna offer the baby egg two times on Friday through their first introduction of egg. I'm gonna do it two times on Saturday and then two times as Sunday. So in our program we do the allergenic foods multiple times across the weekend to observe for any potential Allergenic reaction. We're continuing to offer some of the familiar foods from the previous days, but I don't do any other new foods across the weekend. So I wanna have the fresh eggs as an option, but I also got some of the target good and gather hard boiled cooked eggs and I'll cut those into strips.

Katie Ferraro (14m 13s):

It's really cool for the baby to try that rubbery texture from the hard boiled egg white and the mealy texture from the hard boiled egg yolk. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (15m 44s):

So I have the core ingredients for all next week for baby led weaning. And there's a couple other things that I am going to get from Target that I put on my order. So I did a two cartons of the no salt broth for the pork. I'm gonna make it two different ways. I'm gonna kind of try two different approaches, but I get the no salt chicken broth from there 'cause there's no such thing as no salt pork broth. So whenever I'm cooking with the white meats, I'll use the no salt chicken broth. Whenever I'm cooking with the dark meats, I'm gonna be using the no salt beef broth. Another ingredient that I'm gonna pick up that works for baby led weaning is whole milk. Now of course, we do not substitute whole milk as a fluid in place of breast milk or formula until after the baby turns one. But we do want baby to be introduced to cow's milk, protein and So.

Katie Ferraro (16m 26s):

we already did that for this baby. This baby's had formula, this baby had yogurt in week one. But the whole milk It is totally fine to use as an ingredient. So I'm actually gonna make the oatmeal out of the whole milk and also try it with, I love to try it with the formula as well just to see if the baby recognizes the breast milk or the formula. But if you don't wanna mess around with that or quote unquote waste it, eat a food that your baby's not gonna eat that much of, then it's totally fine to cook with the whole milk. So I'll grab that as well. I also needed to pick up some seasoning so your baby does not need to eat bland food is what I always say. We just stay away from added sugar and excess salt in anything that's super spicy. But because I'm making these sage butternut squash sticks for the baby, I needed some more sage So I was actually able to find that it at target in the seasoning aisle.

Katie Ferraro (17m 8s):

And then another item that I'm gonna grab is a can of pumpkin. So plain pumpkin, not pumpkin pie mix. But once baby has oatmeal under their belt, I like mention, I like to mix other things into it. I'm gonna send a can of pumpkin home with the mom in case she wants to make a pumpkin oatmeal. Just make sure the pumpkin that you're looking at has no added sugar. That's how you know it's not the pumpkin pie mix. And it's a really nice, convenient, affordable way to introduce your baby to a second vegetable. And lastly, they don't have a ton of whole grain options at Target, but they do have barley. Sometimes barley is hard to find. It's on our a 100 First Foods list. So because I saw it online at Target, I'm gonna add a bag of garlic. It's like a dollar 59 cents. So the whole grains are not only wonderful sources of nutrition and iron, they've got a little bit of plant protein, some fiber in there, but they're also really affordable.

Katie Ferraro (17m 53s):

So when you see the whole grains available, I always try to pick 'em up if I can. And I'm gonna grab the barley. So there we have it, 10 foods that you can buy it from Target that work for feeding your baby. And I'll be using all of this for a six month plus two week old baby this weekend. Apples squash oatmeal, pork, eggs, some broth for the pork, some whole milk for the oatmeal, some sage for the squash can of pumpkin that could go back into the oatmeal. And then barley for a future whole grain. I'm gonna put a link to the other episodes that we've done on grocery stores if you kind of wanna pop around and listen to some of those. They'll all be linked up in the description where you're listening to this podcast. It'll also be on the show notes page for this episode, which you can find if you go to BLWpodcast.com/369. Again, if you wanna grab that 100 First Foods days meal plan with all the instructions on how to make the foods as well as the 100 First Foods content library.

Katie Ferraro (18m 39s):

It's all inside of my program, Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro, which you can find online at babyledweaning.co/program. 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 options from AirWave. We're online at BLWpodcast.com. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time. If you're interested in doing baby led weaning, but you're not exactly sure, like what does that mean? What does it look like? Where do I start? My online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie ferraro has everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods and get them to eat over a hundred foods before they turn one, whether you're terrified of choking or maybe you've started but you feel like you're feeding your baby the same foods over and over 'cause you don't know what to feed next, or you're looking for guidance on how to prepare foods safely for your baby's age and stage.

Katie Ferraro (19m 35s):

My program has exactly what you need. There's five hours of concise self-paced video training. you can knock this thing out during nap time this week. You also get access to my 100 First Foods content library so you can see and learn exactly how to prep all of the hundred foods as well as my original a hundred days meal plan. I've been refining this program for the last seven years. Just today, a mom wrote to me and told me that the a hundred days meal plan has been a quote game changer for her busy lifestyle. When you join the program, you also get access to over a hundred phase two combination food recipes. So you're gonna try out the trickier textures, push your baby's palate. And what's cool about these recipes is your whole family will enjoy them. So everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods is inside of the program.

Katie Ferraro (20m 15s):

It's created by me, a registered dietitian who specializes in infant feeding. If you're tired of hunting and pecking around the internet trying to piece this stuff together on your own, I put it all in one convenient place for you. I invite you to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program that's babyledweaning.co. Again, that website is babyledweaning.co and click on program to learn more.