Take care to make sure that the food you feed your baby is safe and fresh.

• Don't feed your baby directly from the jar. Once saliva enzymes from the spoon touch the food, they break down nutrients and speed up spoilage. To avoid waste, spoon a meal's worth of food into a bowl. If you must feed from the jar, throw what's left away.

• Refrigerate unused food immediately.

• Don't keep an open, refrigerated jar of baby food longer than two days — even if it tastes fine to you, bacteria can make your baby sick.

• If you're giving your baby food from a can, either run the can opener through the dishwasher or use one reserved for this purpose (not the one you use to open the dog food).

• Give your baby only pasteurized juices.