Steam cooking baby food: why is it good for them?

Steam cooking has become much more popular over recent years. Drawing inspiration from oriental cooking methods in steam baskets, it has a proven record in preserving vitamins and textures. Indeed, it is no longer associated with a diet or tasteless food: it is your ally for refined low-fat meals.

This is an ideal cooking method to start weaning babies onto solid food because it provides a suitable consistency, one can reuse stock to mix it with milk or food and it kills microbes. Basically, to cook healthy food!

Here’s a quick overview on the benefits of steam cooking!

Preserves vitamins and taste

The principle of steam cooking is to lock up and distribute the steam coming from the evaporation of water to cook food evenly. There are two ways of doing this. One can either place the food in a casserole to increase the pressure and reach very high temperatures or can leave small openings to maintain a lower temperature and better focus on diffusion. The second solution is the one chosen by Nutribaby and allows for an optimal preservation of vitamin and nutritional amounts.

The fact that, for instance, the food is not processed or comes into contact with a stove or with the smoke of charcoal ensures a better preservation of their properties, in particular the texture of their fibres. It avoids adding fats, some of which turn into saturated fatty acids during the cooking process.

This is a gentle cooking method, since the food is not browned. The heat of the steam spreads out slowly but steadily into the food.

Food cooked quickly and evenly

The steam spreads out evenly and perfectly hydrates the food. No more dry fish! The spices used can also fully develop their scents and flavours. Conversely, wrap the food with aluminium foil and make single portions.

To obtain different textures, tastes and colours, do not hesitate to vary cooking times. A carrot will be ready to be blended after 15 minutes of being cooked with Nutribaby. After 10 minutes, it will still be a little crunchy. We recommend cooked and blended food for babies up to 12 months old, after which it will be able to enjoy small chunks of food. From 6 months onwards, stock mixed with milk will allow you to wean the baby onto solid food.

Compared to boiling, food properties are not lost in the water and with steam cooking, the stock can be reused and added to a pureé.

Limitations

* We do not recommend using the stock for root vegetables containing nitrates (and often not very good)

* Some foods can take a long time to cook (raw chestnuts: account for 40 min!)

* Finally, except for red meats that need to be browned and sealed, almost all other foods can be steamed!

Hurray for steam to prepare meals for your children! Stock up in vitamins and flavours.