Just like in the case of baby formula, many people mistakenly think that commercial baby food is nutritious, fortified with all the vitamins and minerals, better than home cooked food, and good for the baby.  Just like in the case of baby formula, this is completely untrue.  Nothing beats homemade baby food.

And no thanks to aggressive marketing efforts by baby food manufacturers, more and more parents (wrongly) believe that babies must start with commercial baby cereal before they can go on to 'real' food like porridge.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Your baby does not need commercial baby food at all.

What's inside?

A substantial portion of a jar of commercial baby food is actually water and modified starch.  Hence, what you get is a really watered down version with little nutritional value (compared to the same amount of the homemade version).  Yet you are charged a high price for nothing.  What you pay is many, many times more than if you were to buy the raw ingredients and cook from scratch.  Even the more 'healthy' organic types use fillers like starch and water.

Do not be fooled by commercial baby food makers when they tell you that their baby food has nutrition specially formulated to meet your baby's needs.  You will be able to meet your baby's nutritional needs by simply making your own baby food too. (The same goes for follow-on milk.  They are just monetary rip-offs.)

Even baby fruit juices are rip-offs.  I did a quick survey once when buying prune juice for Dominic.  Commercial baby prune juice is basically a very watered down version of the normal adult ones.  Yet the price is many times higher.  For example, comparing Heinz Apple and Prune juice with Del Monte prune juice, the Heinz version is about 50% watered down.  Hence, if your original intention was to buy Heinz baby juice and dilute by half, what you can do is simply buy the adult version, dilute by 50% to get the baby version, and then dilute by 50% again to get what you want.  It is much cheaper.