Nestle stinks

My supermarket is full of their crap. I live on the Swiss border where the big N rules. In fact they're right across the lake from me; convenient for transmitting subliminal marketing messages directly into my brain. We do have a Nestle shield on our house deflecting this, but when I'm outside gardening I think I occasionally get zapped. There are a few yogurts in the fridge. How they got there I don't know.

Nestle makes just about the only baby cereal in the supermarket here. The fact that it's THEM doesn't bug me as much as the fact that they are LOADED with sugar and other garbage. You see well, since having a baby I do this really bizarre thing. I read labels on the back of food in the supermarket before buying it. I know, I know, I know! I've totally lost my mind. Who does this sort of stuff anyway? Mom's that's who! Go ahead, roll your eyes. Oh and remind me to write that multilingual guide for how to spend 14 hours a week in a French hypermarché. I do it often enough lately. Anyway, back to greedy, life-sucking, corporate conglomerates. Nestle even makes a precooked cocoa flavored baby cereal. I mean c'mon, talk about forming early addictions. There had to be some alternatives.

I started researching on the internet. Turns out you can make your own very simple baby cereal. A brief visit to the local health food store and I loaded myself up with one package of organic oatmeal. At home I puréed the oatmeal in my food processor to a fine powder and stored it in a jar. Now, this stuff is not precooked. Do not fear! Get out a saucepan and follow the instructions on the package. If your package has no instructions, then read my mini instruction brief below for cooking oatmeal cereal.

Hopefully your baby will love this as much as mine does. I always mix in a few teaspoons of banana or other fruit with it. It's really delicious. Remember to start off with very little food(1-2 tsp) and gradually increase the quantity over a few months time to about 5-6 tsp's.

The internet has lots of baby cereal recipes. As baby gets used to one type of cereal you can make a mix adding barley and brown rice, & a small amount of wheatgerm (iron source). As usual, try to buy organic!


**cooking oats: Boil 3 parts water & add 1 part oatmeal (or any other ground cereal or grain). Simmer for 1-2 minutes while stirring. Turn off heat & leave covered to steam cook for 3 more minutes. Use a wire whisk to smooth out lumps before serving.