Food Mill Recommendation?

Our 7 month old son is just getting into solid foods and we would like to get a food mill to cut down on the cost of baby food and to allow him to share in the bounty of local produce we currently have. I understand there is a Kitchenaid food mill attachment (and we have a Kitchenaid stand mixer), but I was hoping for something a bit more portable that we could take with us on travels. Any recommendations?

Williams-Sonoma has a portable, albeit pricey, food mill.

How about the R.S.V.P. Rotary Food Mill?

The price sure is right. It's a cook's illustrated best buy.

Thanks for the feedback thus far. Anyone have any experiences with baby food-specific food mills such as this one?

The thought of something with more functionality (i.e., functionality for grown up food, too) is certainly appealing, though. Although with the price of the RSVP model, getting both may be a possibility.

My guess is that a baby-specific food mill is a gimmick. (Correct me, someone, if I'm wrong.) I think if you went with a regular food mill, you'd be fine.

aschie30 wrote:My guess is that a baby-specific food mill is a gimmick. (Correct me, someone, if I'm wrong.) I think if you went with a regular food mill, you'd be fine.

Thanks -- I'm certainly not looking for something baby food-specific in as much as I'm looking for something highly portable, and the highly portable food mills all appear to be marketed as baby food mills (but presumably could be used for a wider variety of uses than just making baby food).

I loved my Happy Baby food grinder, which looked very much like the one pictured. I never bought a jar of baby food. And although I knew some parents who carefully processed home-made baby food in their food processors or blenders and then froze it in ice cube trays, I was never that organized. But the baby food grinder was perfect. Lightweight, portable, durable, very easy to use, very easy to clean. It only makes a few tablespoons at a time (maybe half a cup max) but if that's all you need, it's great. For 13 bucks I strongly suggest you give it a try.

Hi Matt -

I have that exact model you linked to in Amazon and have found it very useful, especially when going out to eat. The only drawback, and it's a small one, is that the plunger doesn't go all the way up to the grinding mechanism, so you end up with a small amount left in the mill (about a 1/2 teaspoon). This is only problematic when you want to grind a small amount.

-Jen

I made most of my daughters food and found my Braun Stick Blender to be the best contraption for it. If you find your purees too thick, just add water. At the end, you'll have a kitchen tool you will use again and again.

I would poach a pound of boneless skinless chiken breats and thighs and just puree them in the pot with the poaching liquid.

This works well for squashes, sweet potatoes and all fruits.

The only thing that didn't purree as well were green beans, though I did not cook them to death, and I probably should have.

Good luck! I am probably one of the few people who enjoyed making baby food, and I am glad to answer any questions.

This seemed the appropriate thread for this as the other baby food thread wasn't really for babies...

We've been quite happy with out Kitchenaid stick blender, though we haven't used it that much. However, this article on the BBC's website gave me pause to reconsider how much I planned to use it even (for baby):

Pureed baby food is 'unnatural'

The BBC article wrote:Spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary, a Unicef childcare expert has warned.

<snip>

After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.

Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.

The full article can be found via the link above.

Although he appears to be a flack for the baby food industry, I think the statement from Roger Clarke (in the article linked by Sazerac) that "A 'one size fits all' policy is not appropriate" probably hits the nail on the head. As our families and close friends seem to be in the midst of a baby boom of sorts, I think if we've learned anything it's that all kids are different and will be on their own development plan, usually within some sort of range of "natural" development. We used largely pureed foods (mostly homemade using the KidCo food mill I linked to above or simply a potato masher or fork) from about 6-9 months, mixed in with some foods for chewing. It really comes down to your child's teeth, motor skills, etc. In general, we probably gave our son more foods for chewing as he got the motor skills to be able to pick up foods and feed himself.

It's hard to tell at present whether anything we did in the past has affected his tastes now (he's about 18 months); it seems that a lot of his tastes and appeptites now have more to do with his physical setting than anything else. At home, he'll eat just about anything. When we're at a restaurant or at others' homes, he wants the staples of apple sauce, yogurt, cheese, chicken or turkey, apples and the like. We took a trip to Spain a few weeks ago and he basically refused to eat anything other than blueberries, strawberries, yogurt and manchego cheese. (He did show somewhat of a hankering for jamon iberico, but that's an expensive habit to get into.) It's funny, but we probably want our kid to be an adventuresome eater as much to validate us and our tastes as for his own well-being (both now and later).

Since this is becoming a bit of a general kids' eating thread, I found this article on kids' menus in the NY Times from a few weeks ago amusing (and scary). We're not there yet , thankfully, but we'll have to think strategically about the whole kids' menu thing to get out ahead of it before we too are in the grips of the "nefarious chicken finger pandemic."

I hated my little food mill, we found it much easier to zizz food in the blender and then freeze it in ice-cube trays for use later. We didn't eat out much back then, but when you do, one option is to bring the dry cereal products with you, and thin them out with formula/water/breast milk until your munchkin can, well, munch.

My favorite trick was buying salt-free canned foods for adults in the large can, and using the aforementioned blend-and-freeze method: probably 6-8 servings for less than the price of one, and - it tasted like food! If you're going organic, there are a lot of options available to you this way. Another standby - frozen squash bricks cut into serving-size portions (it typically contains only squash and water.) I agree that texture depends on the kid; Sparky went for chunky-style - but we had a friend whose kid would choke on anything with more texture than milk.

I think nuggetism of food is driven largely by two things: Kids seem to have a picky-eating phase between the ages of two and four that lasts maybe a year. Some parents panic, and allow this phase to drive their child's food choices far longer than they should. On top of that, nugget offenders bribe kids into staying in that phase with a free toy and movie tie-in marketing they find hard to resist.

Hi Everyone,
if I want to make applesauce without peeling apples, is using a food mill my only option for breaking it down after cooking? I have a food processor as well as an immersion blender, and I don't want to buy something I won't use for anything other than applesauce a couple times a year. (Although I would test it out for mashed potatoes & see if I become a believer....)
Thanks in advance!

I just bought my first food mill, a dirt-cheap plastic/metal number from Harbor Freight tools (it remains to be seen if it will work well) but what I used for tomatoes in the past was just a wire strainer and a metal spoon. I suppose you could do this for applesauce as well, provided your apples are well cooked before you strain them (and this would work for baby food, too, strainers come in all kinds of convenient sizes.)

Matt wrote:We're not there yet , thankfully, but we'll have to think strategically about the whole kids' menu thing to get out ahead of it before we too are in the grips of the "nefarious chicken finger pandemic."

I wouldn't worry about it. As a wee-one my favorite food was lobster. My father wouldn't fry the potatoes but would give me lobster at home (yes this was when I ate things with a nervous system).

One of his favorite tales was of going to a local fancy restaurant for dinner. The waitress asked me (maybe I was 5 or 6)what would I like to eat, thinking it would be the children's menu of fried chicken, green beans, and macaroni (I know it really hasn't changed in all of these years). When I told her lobster w/ french fries & melted butter her eyes almost popped out of her head because it was the most expensive thing on the menu (not available on the young'uns menu at all). She looked a bit embarrassed & looked over at my father while asking me wouldn't I rather have a cheeseburger. My father promptly told the waitress that she heard what I wanted for my meal and to kindly bring it.

Hmmm, as I share this I guess my taste for good food started young. Thanks Matt for this lovely memory. The first anniversary of my father's death is October 5 th.

messycook wrote:Hi Everyone,
if I want to make applesauce without peeling apples, is using a food mill my only option for breaking it down after cooking? I have a food processor as well as an immersion blender, and I don't want to buy something I won't use for anything other than applesauce a couple times a year. (Although I would test it out for mashed potatoes & see if I become a believer....)
Thanks in advance!

A food mill will not break down apple skins. You will have to keep picking them out of the mill. It is a pain in the arse with my lousy foodmill. Much easier to peel them first. I do not know if the skins provide any flavor though. I really don't think anything would break down apple skins into palatable pieces.

teatpuller wrote:I really don't think anything would break down apple skins into palatable pieces.

My Mother made our applesauce with whole apples, quartered, cooked and then put through (skins, seeds, and all) something she called a "Foley Food Grinder". I have no idea what that is - I thought it just referred to a specific food mill. The applesauce was perfectly smooth (no bits of skin or fragments) as I remember it.

Guess I need to google "Foley Grinder". Anyone have any experience with this?

You are correct, Orca, it's a brand name of food mill, but one that's been around forever.

DeathByOrca wrote:

teatpuller wrote:I really don't think anything would break down apple skins into palatable pieces.

My Mother made our applesauce with whole apples, quartered, cooked and then put through (skins, seeds, and all) something she called a "Foley Food Grinder". I have no idea what that is - I thought it just referred to a specific food mill. The applesauce was perfectly smooth (no bits of skin or fragments) as I remember it.

Guess I need to google "Foley Grinder". Anyone have any experience with this?

I did not realize it, but I have a Foley. I cannot put apple skins through it. I can put unpeeled apples in it, but the mill pushes the flesh through and leaves the skins and seeds behind (which you constantly have to remove or nothing will go through the mill).

I recently bought this very food mill from Northwestern Cutlery:


I had this idealistic mental picture of my wife & I steaming veggies, cutting them up, throwing them in the food mill, and, with a few cranks, effortlessly producing fresh, healthy, affordable baby food with one hand, while flipping the jarred baby food industry the bird with the other hand ("Screw you, Earth's Best! $1.19 per jar, eh? I hope you choke on your Heinz shares!").

Unfortunately, Big Babyfood got the last laugh - I steamed or roasted everything (sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets) nearly to the point of disintegration, chopped it all up, and cranked until my arm was sore, but the food just jammed itself under the blades and spun around uselessly, with little-to-nothing coming out of the bottom. I was using the disc with the fine holes, but also tried the one with larger holes, same lack of results. I also confirmed that I assembled it properly, and was spinning the blades the right way.

Am I missing something, doing something wrong, or forgetting to do something? Or did I just buy a crappy food mill? If the latter, which do you guys recommend?

I think you bought a crappy one. I've owned a couple over the years and some are just plain not that good. The best one I've used is by Oxo. It also happens to be quite reasonably priced at $50.

Khaopaat wrote:Am I missing something,

Yes. A blender. And/or a food processor.

I made all of the baby food for my now 2 1/2 year old. I also bought a food mill, although a much more basic one. Had the same problem you did.

In the end - just used my immersion blender for everything and it worked like a charm. In addition - it allowed me to be a little more flexible with the consistency when my son was ready to move up a level.

Good luck!

I'll third the blender rec, having done it for Sparky when he was a pup. I have purchased several food mills and have always wound up having the experience you describe: if I want to mill something, I usually just use a ladle on a mesh strainer over a tall bowl. And child labor (your day will come.)


051 by michelehays, on Flickr

The biggest problem with the blender/food processor recommendation is that it will illicit a big, fat "I told you so" from my wife.

Our pediatrician initially advised us to strain any homemade baby food to remove fiber & bits of skin & whatnot, which is why I bought the food mill. But since the destruct-o-twins are coming up on their first birthday, I don't think a bit of yam fiber or peach skin will do them much harm. I guess I'll add the stupid food mill to the graveyard of ill-advised kitchen purchases (next to the lousy espresso maker, useless Oxo mandoline, and George Foreman grill) and just use one of the many food blending devices (at last count, stick blender, blender, food processor, and the shoddy Magic Bullet) instead.

Thanks all! And yes, I can't wait until I can put them to work

Khaopaat -

FWIW, I have the OXO food mill, and have used it without incident for many years (it certainly requires some backing up when I'm churning to clear the mill, but that's par for the course with food mills). I just used it to mill the skins off of tomatoes for a soup. The issue with whizzing everything though a blender or food processor is that it affects the texture -- makes everything gummy -- but that may not be an issue if you're feeding your kids.

aschie30 wrote:Khaopaat -

FWIW, I have the OXO food mill, and have used it without incident for many years (it certainly requires some backing up when I'm churning to clear the mill, but that's par for the course with food mills). I just used it to mill the skins off of tomatoes for a soup. The issue with whizzing everything though a blender or food processor is that it affects the texture -- makes everything gummy -- but that may not be an issue if you're feeding your kids.

Blenders can can develop gluten in starchy things like potatoes and rice, making them gummy. this does not happen with the vast majority of vegetables though. And luckily, with potatoes, a simple fork produces a texture that's just fine for little and big ones alike.

Khaopaat wrote:The biggest problem with the blender/food processor recommendation is that it will illicit a big, fat "I told you so" from my wife.

Our pediatrician initially advised us to strain any homemade baby food to remove fiber & bits of skin & whatnot, which is why I bought the food mill. But since the destruct-o-twins are coming up on their first birthday, I don't think a bit of yam fiber or peach skin will do them much harm. I guess I'll add the stupid food mill to the graveyard of ill-advised kitchen purchases (next to the lousy espresso maker, useless Oxo mandoline, and George Foreman grill) and just use one of the many food blending devices (at last count, stick blender, blender, food processor, and the shoddy Magic Bullet) instead.

Thanks all! And yes, I can't wait until I can put them to work

You married a smart lady .

Most of the child nutritionists that I read advocate for some texture in baby foods, more than there is in commercial foods anyway - the issue is to avoid choking hazards, and make the food something that can be swallowed without chewing (obviously.) We used the blender (after tossing that stupid baby food mill) and did just fine - and as Kenny notes, many foods like bananas, avocados and potatoes do just fine mushed slightly with a fork.

I wouldn't toss the mandoline just yet - I've been using the daylights out of mine for making homemade oven-baked veggie chips. It's more consistent and quicker than a knife (for me) and less to wash than a food processor.

Mhays wrote:I wouldn't toss the mandoline just yet - I've been using the daylights out of mine for making homemade oven-baked veggie chips. It's more consistent and quicker than a knife (for me) and less to wash than a food processor.

I love the idea of a mandoline, and plan on getting a good one soon...this Oxo mandoline, however, is a piece of crap. It's like trying to cut veggies with the wrong edge of a butterknife. The one time I used it, it mangled a potato & a really firm eggplant so badly that instead of making au gratin potatoes & grilled eggplant, I made mashed potatoes and baba ghanoush. That wasn't an attempt at standup comedy, sadly - that actually happened.

Thanks all, for the food mill advice! That's two of you who have recommended the Oxo now...that thing looks tempting. Even after we're out of the babyfood phase, there's nothing like the texture of food put through those things (when they work)...I remember how ethereally soft & fluffy potatoes used come out when I put them through my old Moulinex food mill (I wish I knew what happened to that thing).

Khaopaat wrote:That's two of you who have recommended the Oxo now...that thing looks tempting. Even after we're out of the babyfood phase, there's nothing like the texture of food put through those things (when they work)...I remember how ethereally soft & fluffy potatoes used come out when I put them through my old Moulinex food mill (I wish I knew what happened to that thing).

Yeah, but I just got an Oxo mandolin and am quite happy with it. So take my recommendation for the Oxo food mill with a grain of salt. On the mandolin, we were upgrading from a $10, sharp but cheaply made and somewhat dangerous mandolin. So far, the Oxo has been great. Perhaps you got some bum blades?

I think you'll like the Oxo food mill. If you are worried, buy it from a place where you can return it easily, like Sur La Table.