First things first, do you actually need to buy a baby food maker? The short answer is: no! You don’t actually need a special appliance just for making baby food. Babies have coped well over many thousands of years without their caregivers having access to special baby food making machines.
My own three children all survived with a simple bit of mashing food with a fork or, very occasionally, the use of a food processor to create nice purees.
The ever popular, Breville Kitchen Wizz is a great, compact food processor that would be perfect for mashing up baby food. So, if you’re looking for a baby food maker that the rest of the family will also get a whole lot of use out of, that’s the appliance I’d be recommending.
However, I get it, some people are really excited about the idea of an appliance that is specially designed for the sole purpose of cooking and blending baby food.
Obviously, everyone wants to limit salt and sugar for baby’s first foods so, having a device that is used just for the baby food is a good way to make sure that your homemade baby food is free from other bits and pieces you might be adding to the rest of the family’s dinner.
So, it’s easy to see why these modern baby food makers have become so popular amongst new parents. Anything that will make life quicker and easier while also helping to promote a happy and healthy baby is a game changer and, if nothing else, these sorts of devices make an excellent gift idea for a baby shower!
What To Look For When Choosing A Baby Food Maker
Baby food makers will make your desired baby food in just a matter of minutes. Its overall quality, though, will depend on the features integrated into it.
Here are the things that you should look for in a baby food maker:
Power
The power of a baby food maker can be determined by its wattage. The higher the wattage, the more power the appliance has.
While a high wattage might not seem overly important to just mush up a bit of baby food, a more powerful motor will likely influence the longevity of the appliance too, so it’s likely to last longer if you have a more powerful device.
Size
If you’re going to keep and use your baby food maker at home, then size probably doesn’t matter too much, if you’ve got the space in your kitchen, go as large as you like.
However, if you’re likely to want to take it out and about with you – maybe if you travel a bit (not likely in Australia in 2021!) or maybe if the baby (and the food maker) swaps between two (or more) different households regularly, then you’ll want to look for a more compact or even portable unit.
Features
Not all baby food makers are made equal! If you’re going to invest money in one of these appliances, you might as well find one that performs many functions. For instance, they should be able to steam/cook the food as well as blend it, otherwise you might as well just use a fork or a food processor.
Some come with accessories for storing and freezing food portions too, so if that’s important to you, make sure the device you are interested in has these on offer. Some come with recipes or have recipe books available to purchase separately.
Aesthetic
The design of a device doesn’t necessarily affect the performance. Still, it’s best to find something that suits your taste and your kitchen’s design – you’re going to be looking at it sitting there on the bench for a while, so you might as well like the look of it!
Of course, it will all boil down to your needs and preference.
Best Baby Food Makers Australia
Here’s my list of suggestions for the best baby food makers available in Australia right now. Check them out and decide which one best suits your needs:
NutriBullet, the brand famous for its smoothie makers, is also one of the top choices when it comes to baby food makers.
It makes sense as they are known for creating the original NutriBullet which can pretty much grind up anything you throw at it in the blink of an eye, so it’s not a huge stretch to imagine that they can create a device that will easily puree baby food!
This set is basically a blender with several cute accessories for storage. All of these are BPA-free.
It is extremely cute to look at, and so would make a fantastic baby shower gift, but its downfall is that it doesn’t heat or cook the food. It really is just a very powerful blender with seriously cute cups!
The best thing about this unit is its 1-minute blending time. Whilst some will require great effort and time in manual blending, this machine, with its 200 watts of power, will blend through anything effortlessly.
The second on our list is Cherub Baby’s Baby Food Maker and Processor. This is one of the most functional devices that you can get.
This device has the ability to perform several processes like bottle sterilization and warming, food blending, and defrosting. It can also steam meals and even has the ability to process two meals at once.
This unit’s main asset lies in its LCD Screen feature. This allows better control and monitoring over the food processes and guides you in how long to steam the food for. According to the reviews, however, the blender in this unit is perhaps not as powerful as it could be and one user even commented that the unit leaked.
Looking something like a coffee machine, Tommee Tippee’s Quick Cook offers one of the widest compatibility with food. You can use this with fruits, vegetables, fish, and even meat. Whichever combinations you choose, you can expect them to come out as high-quality baby food.
This appliance allows you to blend and steam food within minutes. It also comes with a spatula, an automatic timer, and an easy-to-clean steamer basket.
With a maximum capacity of 200 grams, simply pour water in the chamber, put food in the steamer basket and choose whether to steam, blend or both. It’s easy to use and your fresh, homemade baby food is ready in minutes!
Chicco Easy Meal Steam Cooker initially looks like a simple blender. It comes with a tilting basket, a cooking basket, a bowl, and a slicer. Together, it makes up a multiportion baby food maker.
The tasks that you can do with this are food cutting, blending, and steaming.
This device offers quite a lot of great features and benefits. For instance, it uses an innovative slicer that cuts better than regular kitchen knives. It also won’t make a mess during the process so cooking and cleaning is quick and easy. Moreover, its steel blades allow thorough consistency over blended food.
Philips AVENT is both a steamer and a blender. It was designed with the idea of allowing the creation of the healthiest baby food possible. This handy appliance comes with accessories like a measuring cup, spatula, and a recipe booklet, so you’ll at least have some ideas to get started with making your own homemade baby food.
Able to both steam and blend in the one jar, this model is convenient and great for baby food prepping.
You’ll get 12 kinds of age-appropriate recipes, all of which can be prepped, cooked and blended through the unit. So your baby won’t have to settle for just one kind of baby food every day!
Because this is a 4-in-1 machine, you can expect to be able to steam, blend, reheat, and defrost food through this. All of these can be done in just a few minutes.
Moreover, this comes with great storage. You can process up to 1.8 kilograms in one session. Its one-handed operation feature also adds to its already high efficiency and convenience, and we all know, when looking after a baby, you need to learn to do things with one hand!
So, there’s our rundown on the best baby food makers available in Australia right now. Which one would I choose? To be honest, I think I’d stick with the Breville Kitchen Wizz, or maybe even the Mini Wizz, knowing that I’d be able to use it for all sorts of things and not just baby food.
But, if I really wanted to pick an appliance that would cook and blend baby food, I’d probably go for the one with the most features which, in my mind, is the BEABA Babycook 4-in-1.
An appliance that is able to steam, blend, reheat and defrost all in one, especially while only using one hand, would obviously be a really useful appliance to have in the kitchen when you’ve got a baby in the family.
Whichever baby food maker you choose, your baby will enjoy fresh, homemade goodness made by you, and they can’t ask for more than that!
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