The Night Before the Big Day!

Okay people. This is it. 100% Blended Diet for the entire day. Tomorrow.

No, the Blendtec did not magically arrive early. I decided that i could put together a balanced BD using already pureed baby foods and foods that are just "ready." Such as yogurt, oil, almond milk.

"Chapter 18: BD 101 - How to Approach and Construct a Blended Diet" of Eric's book is quite informative. He lists out several options on how to start, including a "First Foods" approach (think of a baby just starting to eat. Simple fruit/veg purees, rice cereal...), "Everyday Meal" (blend up what everyone else is eating for the meal. Think of what you'd eat - then blend it!) and "Calculated Recipe."

I combined the First Foods and the Calculated Recipe and came up with the following "menu."

This is for Saturday and Sunday.
(Fruits, Veg & Meat are Stage 2 baby foods)

• 8 oz. rice cereal
• 1 cup pears
• 1 cup apple juice (100% natural, no added sugar)
• 1 cup squash
• 1 cup green beans
• 1 cup peas
• 5 oz. chicken w/chicken broth
• 1 oz. refried beans
• 2 cups vanilla lowfat yogurt
• 2 cups almond milk (unsweetened)
• 8 tsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

... and the whole way THAT menu was derived was by grouping foods into their respective categories:

• GRAINS: oat cereal, rice cereal. Ready - no blending needed
• FRUITS: baby food Stage 2 fruits. 100% juices
• VEGGIES: baby food Stage 2 veg. ALSO any veg easily pureed with my old stand-by blender
• PROTEIN: Stage 2 baby food chicken w/broth. Refried beans.
• DAIRY: Almond milk, rice milk, plain/flavored yogurt (no crap sugar added, only real sugar, if that)
• FAT/OIL: EVOO, flax seed oil, avocado, coconut oil

 ... and the whole way i knew HOW MUCH was by using a super handy chart based on caloric need. Page 152. Which actually comes from USDA's Choose My Plate, which i have yet to browse, but i know i will use greatly.

I know that Hank gets approximately 1200 cals a day. Which also is 1200 mls. Thus: 1 cal/ml. For a 1200 cal diet, the following amount from each category are recommended:

• GRAINS: 4 oz
• FRUITS: 1 cup
• VEG: 1.5 cups
• PROTEIN: 3 oz.
• DAIRY: 2 cups
• FAT/OIL: 4 tsp

And because i wanted to make enough for both Sat and Sun, i simply doubled it.

The first "obstacle" i encountered was capacity. The blender could only hold so much, and i still had more to blend. The first things i tossed in the blender, in order, were: fruit juice, rice cereal, all the fruits and vegs, then blended. That pretty much filled the blender up and i still had a bit more to go. So i pulled a big cooking pot down and dumped the first batch into the pot.

Then i began the next "segment:" yogurt, chicken, refried beans and EVOO, with a little of the first batch to help it blend. Then i dumped THAT into the pot and stirred everything together. NICE AND SMOOTH! Creamy, really. A touch passed puree, toward liquid. Looked really good!!!

I stirred in the almond milk by hand, as i read milk can tend to froth up in the blender. Now i'm not sure if that means COW'S MILK and/or if it has to do with the high speed blenders (Vitamix or Blendtec). But just to be safe, i stirred by hand.

So i had a big pot of my first blend! The color is a light chartreuse (i can't help but say that - cuz that is the color!). A light lime green with a touch of yellow. :-) And i had to taste it - kinda tastes good! I'm sure the vanilla yogurt helped. Definitely not DISGUSTING.

.... and it was right about now that it occurred to me that i have zero storage containers with nice pouring capability! I DID, at one point, but you know how that goes. Lose a lid, gets grimy, what have you. And because I never fed Hank any other way than via the pump, i only HAPPENED to have three 60 cc syringes laying around. At one point, we'd get them regularly in our supply order, and Sam even used them as squirt guns for a stint. But then i told the supplier we didn't need them and so we didn't get them anymore. I've got a shipment coming in on Wed, and i'm downright excited to get my stash of THIRTY syringes. But as you can tell by the picture, i had three 60 ccs and two 35 ccs. After loading them up, i still had blend to store! Most in the blender, and the rest in a water bottle i found.

Ideally, what i'll do in the future is pre-syringe a ton of them up, so that i'll have them ready. And if i make bigger batches, i'll freeze the BD in big freezer bags to bring out as the week goes on. I think i will designate one night a week (Sundays?) to blend for the week.

So i'm really pleased and excited.

And i still have no idea how Hank's going to do with it!!!

But - with the gigantic amount of research i've done on this, and the Blenderized Food for Tubies group i'm constantly reading (and posting questions/comments on) on FB, i've not ONCE read about a BAD reaction. Not one. No one has gotten on and said, "well, we switched over to BD and my daughter didn't tolerate it at all, in fact, her already chronic vomiting INCREASED and so we've had to go back to straight formula." Um. No. Never. So i'm feeling pretty confident.

Report forthcoming tomorrow!!!!