10 Sprouts Farmers Market Foods to Buy for Baby-Led Weaning
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I have not received any financial compensation from the brands or companies featured in the post for their inclusion.
10 Sprouts Farmers Market Foods to Buy for Baby-Led Weaning
If you have a Sprouts Farmers Market store near you, it’s a great grocery store to stock up on foods for your baby to eat with baby-led weaning.
Here are 10 of my recommendations for BLW foods to buy at Sprouts.
1. Bananas
OK, starting this post out nice and easy: fruits and vegetables. And picking bananas to highlight, but basically Sprouts is a great place to buy very affordably priced produce.
Sprouts has a wide variety of locally sourced produce, both conventional and organic. If you like to buy particular types of fruits or vegetables organic - and if you can afford to - go for it.
But please don’t feel pressured to feed your baby “all organic” produce. I covered way more of the organic vs. conventional for babies question in episode 99 of my BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast called “Are Organic Foods Better for My Baby?” and you can listen to that here.
But back to bananas; my favorite way to offer bananas for baby-led weaning:
Peel banana & cut in half at middle of banana
Quarter each half of banana into 4 spears (making 8 spears total)
Offer 2-3 spears out of a bowl to your baby
One final thing about BLW bananas: you might notice I do NOT recommend the “banana lipstick”. The banana lipstick (...not its real name, just what it ends up looking like)...but this is a phenomenon you see on social media where parents cut a banana in half keeping the peel on, then cut back a small part of the peel and give the whole thing to the baby.
Baby smears the little part of the banana that’s sticking up - hence the “lipstick”.
Baby ends up “holding on” to the banana no problem, but then all but eats the banana peel. I don’t like this approach because, well, do YOU eat bananas with their peel on? No, we don’t eat the banana peel...so why would you teach your baby to basically try to do just that?
The peel is where any potential pesticides from a banana live. It should be removed and not put in your baby’s mouth.
There are safer ways to make slippery foods like banana spears easier for babies to pick up. Here are a few of my favorites:
2. Beets
Once you get through the fresh fruits and vegetables at Sprouts, be sure to check out their canned food aisle if you’re stocking up for baby-led weaning.
I love the Sprouts brand of canned foods because you can find no added salt versions of most of their canned vegetables.
Beets are a great food for baby-led weaning. You can do canned beet slices that you cut into spears or sticks and offer to babies.
Sprouts also carries the brand Love Beets, which are fine for babies because they don’t contain added salt or sugar. Of course you can always prepare fresh beets for your baby...but because that can be kind of a pain, the canned or Love Beets options are great alternatives.
After feeding your baby beets you want to be aware of some color changes coming to a diaper near you. Beets can turn the color of your baby’s stool a dark red and sometimes affects urine color too. This is not an indication anything is wrong, but if you’re not aware or on the lookout it can sometimes appear to be blood. It’s not, it’s just the color compound in beets that babies and even adults can’t always break down.
For more ideas about which canned foods to have on hand when you’re starting solids, check out my free PANTRY PLANNER FOR BABY-LED WEANING.
This guide is organized by different categories of staple foods to stock your pantry with for baby-led weaning. You can download the PANTRY PLANNER FOR BABY-LED WEANING here.
3. Cornmeal
If you’ve been to a Sprouts you know their bulk aisle is pretty impressive. There are all sorts of flours and nuts and seeds as well as a number of other ingredients you can safely serve your baby.
I like cornmeal as a bulk item to get at Sprouts. Cornmeal is an easy way to introduce your baby to corn. We don’t do corn on the cob until after the baby has a tooth or two, and individual small kernels of corn can’t be eaten by early eaters who don’t yet have their pincer grasp.
Commercial polenta that you buy at the store in a tube has too much sodium to serve for babies. But you can use cornmeal to make your own polenta at home. Just add hot water, cook and stir, cool and serve the baby.
You can do polenta on a preloaded spoon that you offer to the baby who then can self-feed. But you can also cool polenta, form into patties, fry and then cut into strips and offer that to the baby to self-feed.
For more information about feeding corn to babies check out this episode of the BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast called “Corn: How to Offer Corn Safely to Your Baby” here.
4. Tofu
Tofu is my favorite way to introduce baby to soy.
Soy is one of the BIG 8 allergenic foods (...those are the 8 foods that account for about 90% of food allergy). We want to offer babies the BIG 8 early and often to help prevent food allergy down the road.
Tofu is fine to feed babies right out of the package. You can cut it into sticks or strips about the size of your pinky finger.
You’ll find that firm or extra firm tofu is easier for babies to pick up and self-feed than the softer types.
And for more information about safely feeding your baby soy, check out this episode of the BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast called: Soy: How to Introduce Your Baby to this Potentially Allergenic Food and you can listen to that here.
5. Goat Cheese Puffs
This is a cool new food found at Sprouts: Kabrita’s Goat Cheese Puffs.
Kabrita makes goat milk nutrition foods for babies and children who don’t do well with cow’s milk. They’re not for cow milk allergic children, but rather children who have skin or digestives difficulties when consuming cow milk.
In addition to goat milk formula, Kabrita makes these goat cheese puffs. They are designed for babies and are a great, safe way to introduce your baby to the really unique flavor of goat milk but without all of the salt cheese foods usually have.
6. Prunes
We don’t feed sticky foods like intact dried fruits to babies as they are a choking hazard. But you can easily make a homemade prune puree that the baby can self-feed on a pre-loaded spoon.
Now why would you WANT to feed your baby a homemade prune puree? Well, for starters: constipation is a natural side effect of switching to solid foods, and prunes can get things going for your baby during baby-led weaning.
Prunes are also quite high in iron, and we want to be offering iron-rich foods as part of the weaning diet whenever possible.
If your baby is constipated from starting solid foods, check out this blog post to learn what to do: HELP! MY BABY IS CONSTIPATED and you can read that here. (Scroll to the bottom of that post to get my homemade apple prune puree recipe.)
7. Pumpkin Puree
I’ve mentioned my love for Sprouts Farmers Market brand of canned foods already in this post, but their canned pumpkin puree is another big winner for baby-led weaning.
Yes you can always prep and serve fresh pumpkin for your baby if you can find it. But pumpkin puree is so convenient and so rich in nutrients. Just make sure you’re not getting pumpkin pie mix - that has added sugar and we want to avoid that for babies.
If you’re not sure what to do with all that fabulous canned pumpkin puree, I have a free download with 5 PUMPKIN RECIPES FOR BABY-LED WEANING that you can download here. These recipes are perfect for how to feed your baby pumpkin.
8. Buckwheat flour
Back to the pantry staples you can get at Sprouts: I love buckwheat flour for baby-led weaning.
Buckwheat is a gluten-free grain that doesn’t actually contain wheat. Like all whole grains it is a valuable source of carbohydrate and has fiber and iron.
I love to use buckwheat flour in pancakes for baby-led weaning. I’m sharing my favorite double duty pancake and waffle batter dry mix recipe with you here. This is a great one to have on hand for busy mornings when you don’t feel like making breakfast from scratch.
And because commercial pancake mixes have too much salt for babies, this recipe is nice because it’s lower in sodium than any other dry mix you can buy. You can sub up to about 50% of the wheat flour with buckwheat flour in this recipe without any major compromises in the texture of the outcome.
Do be aware that this recipe for double duty pancake and waffle batter dry mix contains wheat. Wheat is a potentially allergenic food and you want to make sure the baby has been exposed to wheat a number of times without reaction before trying this recipe. When prepared the recipe also includes egg and buttermilk (dairy), so again, be sure the baby has been exposed to these potentially allergenic foods on their own a number of times without reaction before trying.
9. Whole Chicken
I know it can be freaky to think about serving your baby meat early on in feeding, but you can do it! If your family eats meat you SHOULD try to incorporate high iron foods like meat, fish and poultry early and often.
You can do puree cooked chicken on a preloaded spoon or offer soft strips of cooked, shreddable dark meat (legs, wings or thighs) with bones and skin removed to your baby. Be sure to serve with lots of juice as dry meats (and white meat that is particularly dry!) can be a choking hazard for babies.
Of course you can get a whole chicken anywhere, but I particularly like the fresh chickens at Sprouts. They’re affordable and not too big and so easy to make in your oven or slow cooker or Instant Pot.
My favorite recipe for whole chicken is from Jenna Helwig’s Multi-Cooker Baby-Food Cookbook. You can get this cookbook on Amazon here (this is an affiliate link).
10. No Salt Added Marinara Sauce
Pasta is one of my favorite ways to introduce babies to the potentially allergenic food wheat. And once your baby gets the hang of self-feeding plain pasta, you can begin to introduce pasta with sauce.
The problem with most marinara sauce is that it has too much sodium and added sugar for babies.
But at Sprouts they have a low sodium marinara sauce that is great for baby-led weaning.
More BLW Grocery Shopping Goodness
If you can’t get enough of this info on what to buy or not to buy when you’re grocery shopping for baby-led weaning, I have a BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast I recorded just for you!
It’s called “Grocery Shopping for BLW: Stocking Up Smart & What to Skip” and you can listen to that episode here.
Download my free list with all of the items to buy to stock your pantry here.
And if you like this list of 10 SPROUTS FARMERS MARKET FOODS TO BUY FOR BABY-LED WEANING, I have a similar post for 10 different BLW foods to buy from Trader Joe’s, Costco, Whole Foods, & Wal-Mart too:
Lastly, don’t forget to join my free online workshop BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS: How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning 1 without you having to spoon-feed purees or buy pouches!”
Everyone on this free workshop gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS LIST...so you’ll never wonder what foods to feed your baby next! You can sign up for this week’s workshop times here.
Thanks for stopping by and happy feeding...but happy grocery shopping too!
