mmcphee's Full Review: Kidco Baby Food Grinder F700
My 9 month old is about the laziest eater you could meet. She couldn’t be bothered with eating and would just nurse if I would let her. After weeks of trying, at about 7 months she finally started eating cereal and jarred baby food. So long as it was mushy she would eat it, and eat a lot of it. This was sort of new territory for me since my older daughter preferred table food and its accompanying chewy texture to jarred baby food. But, I figured if that is what she would eat, well I’d fork over the fifty cents a jar and let her enjoy.
Then we went for her 9-month well baby visit (check-up when we were kids!) The first thing out of the doctor’s mouth – “She eats a lot of jarred baby food, doesn’t she?” My little girl had taken on the telltale orange glow that can result from too much vitamin A. Excess vitamin A is stored in body fat and the liver and causes the change in skin color. While not considered dangerous our pediatrician suggested eliminating prepared baby food from my daughter’s diet. A single 4 oz jar of mixed baby food can contain upward of 300% of the RDV of vitamin A; a 4 oz jar of carrots contains a whopping 610% of the RDV of vitamin A. At the time of the appointment my baby was easily eating 2-3 jars of baby food that were very high in vitamin A. So, my new goal was to get our baby onto regular table food.
How Could You Not Notice It?
It’s not like my daughter woke up one morning with Oompah Loompah orange skin. The change in her skin color happened slowly and subtly as the vitamin A built up in her body. So, no, I didn’t notice it. My youngest was born with a different skin tone from my older daughter and me, which is to say she actually has some color. She takes after the Italian side of my husband’s family. I admit I am a little jealous of the fact that she will never have to have a tan just to be considered merely “pale”. Being so enamored with her skin tone, I failed to notice the slight shift in color until it was pointed out to me.
What’s a Mom to Do?
I explained my dilemma to the pediatrician. She suggested chopping up our food very fine and “hiding” it in some applesauce, which contains no vitamin A. So for that first dinner I spent 15 minutes mincing chicken and mashing peas with a fork. Little Miss Lazy Eater would have nothing to do with gumming even the smallest particle of chicken. She happily sucked down the applesauce and spit the chicken back out at me. After a few spoonfuls she refused it all together. I had slightly more success with the peas, so long as she got but the mushy inside. But if there was any pea skin forget it. She ate mashed potatoes for dinner that night.
After two days of eating only baby cereal and mashed potatoes I knew I had to try something else since even fork-mashed bananas weren’t smooth enough for Little Miss Lazy Eater. I pulled out my blender to try and turn our food into a more palatable consistency for her. However, the volume of food a 9 month old will eat sits below the whirling blender blades and is left untouched. I had the same problem using my mini Cuisinart, there just wasn’t enough food for those relatively large appliances. I know that I could have chopped up a larger volume of food in those machines and froze the leftovers. Quite honestly I tried that with my older daughter and after a year I threw away several bags of frozen home made baby food since my goal was always to have eat what we were eating.
Is There a Product Somewhere in this Story?
Yes, I was just coming to that. While wandering around Babies R Us on another mission I stumbled upon the KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700. I was getting desperate and figured for $10 I would give it a try.
The KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 is a small food mill designed to convert most table food into baby food. Fully assembled the food grinder is about 8” tall and 4” in diameter. The housing is plastic but the cutting mechanism is stainless steel.
The KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 is essentially a three-piece design. There is plunger base used to move the food, the sleeve that can also act as a feeding cup and the cutter assembly. The cutter assembly is actually 5 different pieces: the shaft, cutter knife, strainer plate, thumb-nut and handle. The plunge has a groove that a rubber o-ring slips into. The plunger comes with a ring in place as well as a spare. A flimsy long handled spoon is included with the set, My older daughter immediately confiscated it and she is using it as part of her kitchen. No loss there.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow, including written directions and line drawing. The entire unit goes together in less than a minute. On the back of the instruction sheet is an order form for replacement parts.
Let’s Grind Some Food
The first step, of course is to wash everything. The KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 is top rack dishwasher safe, making it very easy to clean. Since the cutter assembly has several small parts I disassemble and put it in the hinged basket accessory of my dishwasher. It was nice to finally find a use for that thing, once I remember where I had stored it. If you are into sterilizing it will stand up to boiling water (according to the directions, no personal experience there).
The first step is to insert the plunger base into the sleeve. The o-ring provides a snug fit but it moves easily. Then slip the outer cup sleeve upward and it will make a cup between the base of the plunger and the sides of the sleeve for the food. You can do as little as about 3 or 4 adult bites of food up to about ¾ of a cup. Next you put the cutter assembly onto the grinder by lining up the tabs on the strainer plate with the notches in and giving it a turn to lock it into position. Once the cutter is attached you slide the sleeve down until you meet some resistance from the food below. Then start turning the handle clockwise while slowly continuing to push down on the sleeve until all of the food has been ground. The food comes up through the strainer plate, looking a bit like grains of rice. The texture of the processed food is very soft but drier than commercially prepared food. The manufacturer does recommend adding liquid (water, milk or juice) to make the food the right consistency.
You can feed the baby right out of the grinder since the top of the sleeve curves to form a bowl. The rubber ring in the plunger base makes a tight seal so you don’t have liquid running out of the bottom. Depending on how much food you have processed into the cup it can be difficult to get the cutter assembly out and it is a bit of a pain to use a bowl with a handle in the middle of it. I generally just scrap the food out of the grinder bowl and into a regular bowl. The instructions do not mention anywhere about it being microwave safe, and I like to heat up my daughter’s food, so for us, an extra bowl is the way to go.
Can You Turn Anything into Baby Food?
Not exactly. The instructions with the KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 suggest soft cooked meats, freshly cooked vegetables and canned or fresh fruits. You can process different foods together for variety.
I’ve found that fresh vegetables need to be over cooked to get them to process easily. I simply remove our vegetables when they are done and let hers cook a little longer to make them softer. Frozen vegetables are very easy since they tend to have a mushy texture when cooked anyway. Bananas went through like a dream, as did rinsed canned peaches and pears. A very ripe fresh pear also made great baby food. Baked chicken, roasted turkey and left over corned beef were easily processed. Pot roast and the accompanying carrots and potatoes went through very easily as well. Ground beef, cooked in just about any form, is another great choice.
Neither canned nor fresh corn made it through the grinder. I think the kernels are a little too firm so only a little of the inside of the corn made it through. Most of the corn just created a logjam in the grinder that had to be cleaned out. Roasted asparagus suffered the same fate, but that probably could have been avoided had I cooked it longer. The KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 was no match for even a tender piece of steak, but I really didn’t expect it to be able to grind my rib eye either.
This is one of those items that if you are going to wash it in the dishwasher you really have to wash it first, at least the cutter assembly. Food tends to get stuck in the little holes of the strainer plate and harden on in the wash and dry cycle. Once I disassemble to the cutter assembly I make sure I rinse the strainer plate well before tossing it into the basket. I’ve also discovered that this is the kind of plastic that discolors from tomatoes but a good soak in the sink right after that meal took the color out.
Little Miss Lazy Eater‘s Thoughts
Sorry, she is too busy sleeping off her chicken potpie to give you her thoughts. But, yes, my little girl is happily eating real food, albeit in a mushy form. It is fun to watch her expression with each new food taste she gets to experience. I have only had to add liquid or applesauce to a few meals; overall Little Miss Lazy Eater is handling the drier texture like a champ.
But it does bring me to a drawback of the KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700, there is only one strainer plate size. The holes are a little larger than 1/16” in diameter so the processed food comes out in a very fine texture. It would nice to have the option of a strainer plate with larger holes so we could slowly graduate to chunkier food. I suppose once she is ready to move on it will have to be fork mashed food again.
Does it Do Anything Else?
I am so glad you asked. I don’t eat eggs. The smell, the taste, the texture, they all turn my stomach, unless we are talking about deviled eggs. I can’t get enough of home made deviled eggs with their smooth, creamy filling with just the right amount… What’s that? The yolks on your deviled eggs aren’t smooth and creamy? Mine either.
While hard boiling eggs in preparation for the Easter Bunny I ended up with 3 cracked eggs. My first though was deviled eggs. If I make a dozen deviled eggs then I’ve got appliances that will make that smooth texture I crave, but just like making baby food, all of these gadgets fail at 3 egg yolks. That was until I pulled out our KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700. So I ran those egg yolks through our baby food grinder. I think this was the best small batch of deviled eggs I’ve ever made.
Did I Read Something About a Carrying Case?
KidCo seems to make two models the F700 and the F800. Another review talks about the convenient carrying case, but that does not come with this model, only the F800. However you can purchase as extra storage tote for $5 from the replacement part list.
The Last Word
The KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700 was an impulse buy. And hindsight being 20/20 I’m not sure that I would buy it again. Not that it dosen’t do the job, because it does, and it does it very well. I don’t like having tools in my kitchen that only do one thing. I would probably opt for a potato ricer if I could do it all over again. If you aren’t familiar with them, well they look like a garlic press on steroids, but would still be small enough to make just a meal’s worth of baby food. Potato ricers also come with multiple disks so that you can change the texture of the food being pressed through it. That would eliminate the only fault I can find with the KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700. However if you are only going to use a potato ricer to make baby food then save yourself a few bucks and go with KidCo Baby Food Grinder F700.
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