Mediterranean diet being offered in baby food form

A Windsor, Ont., woman is bringing the Mediterranean diet to the diaper set.

Lisa Codina is the woman behind BitesforBabies.com, a parenting blog that includes recipes for gourmet baby food.

Codina's been making baby food since a recent trip to Italy.

"They don't have their fridges stocked like we do. So you usually open the fridge and there's maybe five ingredients, and you have to figure out what you can make out of that," she said.

The Mediterranean diet involves high consumption of:

• Vegetables.
• Legumes.
• Fruits.
• Nuts that are not roasted or salted.
• Cheese or yogurt.
• Whole grains.
• Fish.
• Monounsaturated fats such as olive oil and avocados.

Codina recently started selling her home-made creations to other moms.

She just launched her first menu. It includes sweet potato hummus, apple-date compote and Bolognese sauce.

"I'm not saying that store-bought food is unhealthy, but when would you see hummus or banana [and] avocado in store-bought baby food?" Codina said. "So you have the option, when you make it at home, to personalize the recipes. And if baby doesn't like a certain ingredient, you can maybe try cooking it in a different way."

She also offers workshops to parents, where she gives out plenty of samples.

"People have been sort of planting the seeds and telling me that I should just try selling it, that there's a market for it here, because everyone's kind of tired of the regular store-bought stuff.

"It's all the same texture, it's all the same flavour. There's no spices, there's no herbs. And I always say, too, when something can be on a shelf and have an expiry date of a year or two, how fresh is it?"

Jen Dinchik is one of her first customers.

"It's homemade stuff, and something that I would eat," she said. "I would never eat baby food out of a jar, ever. This stuff I would eat."

Codina is a teacher who is on maternity leave. She hopes to continue the business when she goes back to work in November.