I approached this book from an economy angle… in that I am totally oblivious to nutrition number crunching (I judge my diet intake by color variety and crunchiness factors), but I am appalled at how much baby food costs these days. As I like to say, a new parent sees a jar of baby food and thinks “75 cents! How cheap!” A reasonably weathered parent says “75 cents per jar of baby food! Dear god!” then goes and makes use of their ice cube trays and a buttload of roasted organic squash.

As far as this book goes, it is a solid read with an absolute bazillion number of ideas in it, most of which thrust toward the economical DIY angle. Is Ruth Yaron crazy because she insists on not wasting fruit scraps and wanted to tell you how to home-blend fire retardant clothing? Perhaps. Or maybe she’s just crazy brilliant.

I’ve read other reviews from people who know better than I that her nutritional information is either dated or misinformed, but again… I’m a money-mom on this one, and from that angle, her ideas and information is invaluable, because babies are some majorly hungry little beings, and when you have one, Gerber becomes THE MAN, man… and anything you can do to escape their hungry little corporate maw makes you feel much better about yourself. THE END.