Cuisinart BFM-1000 Baby Food Maker & Bottle Warmer - Steam Cooker & Defroster for Homemade Purees, Perfect for Busy Parents & Healthy Infant Meals at Home or Travel

I was very excited to try this. After only three uses I'm sending it back. My main problems are the food tastes weird and it does not puree the food fine enough. My baby is only 6 months and just starting on solids. If you've purchased any brand of baby food rated for babies this age, you'd know that the food is very liquidy and the puree is super smooth.The texture of the food this machine made was just too coarse. No matter how long I pulsed and blended...the puree was just too rough and baby didn't take to it very well. Then I tasted the food and noticed a very strong and distinct taste. It's the taste of the machine--the heating element to be specific. How do I know? Ever tried drinking water heated by a counter top coffee maker? Yup...the food that this machine makes takes like that even though I use good purified water. My baby gagged to let me know her displeasure. I'm not sure if that taste will go away as the machine is broken in. But I'm not going to find out. I sent this bad boy back.I prefer to cook my baby's food in a steamer, in a nice 18/10 stainless steel pot, or to just bake it. Then put it in my Vitamix and blend to any consistency I need.So, why o why did I buy this when I already have a $500 blender at home? My working mom friends told me that it was way more convenient to have a machine that does it all...so that it's easy to prep, cook, blend, clean. They also mentioned that this way, you don't lose any of the nutrients after you cook the food and transfer the cooked food to another container for processing. After trying this, I don't know if any of that is true. Cooking in a steamer, oven, pot then separately blending in my blender was just as convenient. Cleaning is about the same initially, however, I think that in the long run it is probably more work to clean and maintain this machine. You don't just wash the food processing cup after each use, you have to wash the blade and the lid, too, after each use. Then you have to perform frequent routine cleaning and maintenance on the entire machine as well to make sure the insides and the entire thing is hygienic. The argument about loosing nutrients. Well, you don't loose any if you steam or bake. And if you boil in a pot, my tip to you would be just don't use too much water when boiling so that you can dump all the nutrient rich boiling liquid in the blender with the food when you puree.One last thing I will mention is...the steaming and processing cup and lid is plastic. Sure Cuisinart says that all the parts that touch the food is BPA free. What about the parts that touch the water? And are you really comfortable heating plastic over and over to cooking temperatures whether or not it is BPA free? Plastics all break down whether BPA free or not. I personally believe all plastics can leach, if not BPA, other chemicals into food when the plastic is exposed to high temperatures and breaks down from heat or age.For the smartees out there. Yes, the Vitamix blending cup is poly-carbonate. But I don't cook my food in it. I let cooked food cool down before I put it in the blending cup. If that is really of concern to you, there are blenders out there with glass blending cups. Anyway, with the all concerns I have, I think cooking and blending separately is better than these all-in-one baby food makers on the market including this Cuisinart model.