Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker
by Beaba
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Our Price: $114.49 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker
Customer Review: I love the babyook! Pricey, but it was a gift
Summary: 4 Stars
I love it! It's compact, sleek, simple ... and I use it every day! I would like to confess that I did not initially intend to puree my baby's food daily, although in theory I would have loved to. I just knew I probably wouldn't end up doing it (we have 3 kids and I just know myself pretty well.....). THEN, we received this wonderful gift! A good family friend bought it in Europe and sent it over. At first I thought oh boy this looks like too much trouble. I have a blender, and I steam veggies often for the family, so it seemed just as easy to merely pop pre-steamed veggies in the blender (again, in theory). So the Babycook sat for a few weeks. I really am a little lazy and also SO crazy busy, (I know, an odd combo). I opened it up when she was about 5 months and I've been using it EVERY DAY, sometimes 3 times a day. She is mainly breastfed, but I'll pop in whatever we are eating, in tiny amounts sometimes, and give her little tastes here and there. I LOVE IT! Conversely, you can fill it with anything...carrots, peas, potatoes, zucchini, blueberries...etc., and it's enough to last for DAYS! Usually I feed her what I make and only occasionally refrigerate/freeze for day or more. It's just so easy to use and clean that I don't need to make large quantities. Lastly, what I do the most often is just add veggies that have already been steamed for the rest of us, and it purees within seconds. Often, I'll steam for just a few minutes and it creates a perfect consistency. You'd think a steamer and a blender would be exactly the same but it's not, at least for me. Hint: Rinsing it off immediately creates so much less work than if you let it sit (just like everything else) but I notice that if I rinse it off right away I am much for likely to use again and again. There are only the 2 parts, plus the lids. It's great. I wouldn't have spent that much I have to say, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. I recommend it to anyone. I've been using it often 1-3 times a day for over 2 months and we have very hard water here, and so far no problems. After reading some reviews I think I may switch to filtered, maybe even distilled, water but the product looks the same as the day I opened it, so..., so far so good!!
Customer Review: Great Product, Despite Negative Reviews
Summary: 5 Stars
I received the Beaba Babycook as a shower gift and have been using it for two months now. Cooks run in my family (we have chefs two generations back) and I know my way very well around a kitchen. I have the requisite steamer, blender, food processor, etc., but was so relieved (once I trudged through the Babycook's awful directions) at how easy it is to make baby food. I have all sorts of combinations in my freezer: peas, peas/sweet potato (and I can fit two chopped sweet potatoes in the reservoir, not half of one as one reviewer mentioned), butternut squash/corn, blueberries/apples, blueberries/bananas, apples/butternut squash. And yes: I cooked, pureed, defrosted, and steamed all of these foods without a problem. My baby boy is 8 months and there hasn't been one item I've cooked in this machine that he doesn't love. He rejected several of the organic processed baby foods before I started using this, and I'm so happy that he likes the fresh food the best. I always taste-test my food before I serve, and I hated the processed, pre-packaged baby foods you buy at the supermarket. I love everything this machine produces. And I LOVE the butternut squash/corn combination so much that I now serve it as a side dish for my "adult meals."
The prep is insanely easy: 10 seconds - 2 minutes total. The measuring of water. The switch of a button. BOOM.
I read all the reviews tonight that talk about this product "growing mold", and I looked into my reservoir and did notice some brown buildup. But I know what causes mold: it needs a warm, dark place to fester. So I ran the distilled vinegar per the instructions (which is to prevent lime buildup, not mold) and will now always make sure to take off the reservoir lid so that it can air dry. Think about it: we do that with our washing machines to prevent mold, so it stands to reason that you'd have to do this with this product as well.
Hope that helps! I'm a mom that works from home, I prepare three "adult" meals a day, and also make homemade baby food. This machine keeps me SANE and PROUD. I love that I can provide my child delicious, homemade meals!
Customer Review: A Slacker Mom's dream
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this gadget. Compact, all-in-one, easy to use, FOOL PROOF, and ... gives me the CONFIDENCE to make my baby's food.
I've read tons of web reviews and blogs about this product, and detractors seem to miss/misunderstand my 'category' of mom. I cook when I can. I bake when I get the chance but... mostly, I dont have the time or confidence to pull it off anything 'new'... AND clean up multiple utensils!
So many blogs out there chastise the Beaba buyers for wasting money--telling us to buy cheap steamer inserts and dust off our blenders, food processors and food mills... For my first baby, I listened to these moms (and the Beaba wasnt in the USA yet). I bought the food mill; I pulled out the steamer insert... and.. I froze. My baby ate NOTHING BUT JARRED (organic) FOOD! till she could chew the foods in my comfort zone. Baby food, all the prep and the coordination of all these tools was all so daunting. I was terrified I'd get it wrong... or couldnt keep sterile enough... or would get lost in all the piles of things I'd have to clean after each prep!!
THEN THE BEABA! Little to clean, nothing to get wrong, no digging through drawers and juggling appliances in my limited space! I LOVE IT! Call me a slacker mom! But dont call me frivolous with money!! Organic Baby food is $1.10 a jar and my baby would go through 4-6 a day. I've had my Beaba for 6 weeks, and it's already paid for itself.
BTW, you can adjust the consistency to your baby's taste as he grows. I figure soon I'll just be using it to steam, not blend. And... I doubt it will be a permanent fixture in my kitchen! But ... its paid for itself! Carrots smell like carrots!!! and ... its given me a confidence that I hope extends to other culinary projects! Slacker moms, buy it.
PS Careful if you're reading those blogs re: Beaba and BPA. Read ALL the blogs. The most uptodate will lead you to the latest info promising this product IS BPA free. There are blogs that appear current but have not updated this info.
Customer Review: not worth the money
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a nice idea, but you can only fit half a sweet potato in it at a time. You should instead buy yourself an immersion blender, which is super easy to clean and useful for other things too. Steaming your food in a regular pot with a steamer basket is much faster and easier, and you don't need to be plugged in to do it. The Babycook is so cute and the idea is so nice, I just had to buy it.
I have some issues with the design as well as the function - the lid is awkward to close, a little lip on the lid has to slide into a little crevice on the body before you can use it. Very annoying to use, and you cannot get the thing off when you are done unless you use two hands. The food chopping function only happens when you have the switch turned, so its never hands free except when you are steaming, which takes longer than steaming on my gas stove. The cord is also too short, which is never good in the kitchen.
I did a test last night, half of the sweet potato in the babycook and half on the stove (chopped). Stove won, it was done first. But wait, the babycook will puree too right, so that was handy. But in order to puree a potato you need additional water, and that means a two handed removal of the lid and then the same thing to get it back on again. If there are chunks, its off again with the lid - very annoying. You can't fit much in the babycook to puree even after taking out the steaming basket. You are still limited to one half of a sweet potato, so I had to puree in batches.
An immersion blender is nice because you can move it around to get all the chunks, you can tilt the container etc.. I got this as a gift, I asked for it actually. But now I would love to return it.
Save your money and invest in an immersion blender for when you are making larger batches and a hand held food mill that doesn't need to be plugged in when baby eats what the family is eating but in a softer form.
Definitely not recommended.
Customer Review: So very close, but not quite there
Summary: 3 Stars
Overall, this is an ingenious device, allowing you to cook then puree your baby's food all with a single, reasonably compact device. As far as it goes, it works well, but there are a couple of issues, as follows:
1. There is no audible indicator when a cooking cycle is done. There is a light that goes out, but that's it, so if you're not in there watching it or checking it you'll never know when it's done.
2. Building on #1, if you leave the machine with the switch in the cooking position and fail to turn it off, after some time (30 minutes, an hour, we're not sure), it will spontaneously start the cooking cycle all over again. We've forgotten about it overnight and woken up to a warm device filled with greatly overcooked food.
3. There is no timer to allow you to judge when the cooking cycle might finish, so it's all guesswork until you start to get an instinct for it. This compounds issues #1 and #2.
4. There is no way to store all the pieces together when not in use. There is a cooking basket that fits inside the cooking cup, and when it's in there then you can't also put the blending lid in the stack, because it's one or the other. Also, there is no place to store the spoon/stick that is used to retrieve the hot basket out of the cooking cup. So, when it's all clean you have at least two random pieces floating around that have to be tracked and stored separately. A couple of little clips or indentations or something to hold these pieces would make it a lot more convenient.
We really wish that they would update the device to address the above issues. We use it on an almost daily basis, and it does a great job at cooking and pureeing the food (as long as you watch it like a hawk and have nearby storage for the loose pieces), but it could use some polish to make it a really efficient device.