To think pouches are awful?

[AIBUnamechanger9]

I have two DCs and have never fed them from pouches. I see babies and toddlers sucking on them everywhere and it seems horrible for their teeth? Also for having a routine of eating at mealtimes or teaching them to eat properly. I recently spoke with a friend (who I am quite close with and believe she’s a wonderful mum) and she told me her 8 and 10 yo children still eat from pouches, especially if they’re on a day out, etc.

AIBU to despair at the prevalence of pouch feeding?

I thought this thread was going to be about a gentleman's garment. 😳

My DC is 12 now but had a lot of the little baby jars when he was weaning as a baby. He’s a healthy normal pre-teen. Honestly at this age I don’t know nor care which of his peers had jars/pouches when they were babies. You can’t tell and literally nobody gives a damn.

When I’m on the go, I eat the protein yogurts that come in pouches and I’m in my 40s. I consider them to be a convenient and healthy snack.

My youngest is 17 month old and I will get him the long life yogurt ones for our next holiday as it will be easy to get him something when he needs it

I often give my 8 year old DC the yoghurt pouches in their packed lunch as they seem to keep cooler than normal yoghurts. Saves me having to deal with a slimy yoghurt pot and lid when they get home, plus they don’t lose the spoon I sent them in with! Shock horror, but I also sometimes eat the protein pouches 😱. I’d reevaluate our eating habits but there’s no point as I know we eat a well balanced diet and our teeth are pretty much perfect!
Shame on you OP for judging people, especially strangers you see in public. They may have been out for hours and have prepared for hungry times so they don’t have to fork out a fortune on convenience food. Whatever their choice it really is none of your business.

Such lazy thinking.

You could have packed a vitamix blender and plugged it in next to your bed on the ward.

Parents today. Honestly.

They are great for convenience when out and about.

You have no idea how people feed their kids at home. Not that it is any of your business.

All the mums I knew when I was little were part time or sahm mums for at least a few years too.

Aibu to say that people who despair over how other people raise their kids when they should be minding their own business are bloody irritating?!

Mums aren’t some kind of protected species. I judge other mums, as I do dads, and all manner of other people if I think their behaviour is regularly substandard or damaging. I judge parents who let their tiny toddlers play on tablets or have loads of screen time, I judge parents who feed their kids junk, I judge parents who let their kids attack other children at soft play, I judge parents who let their kids stay up until 11pm because it’s too much hassle to put them to bed.

There’s so much shit and damaging parenting around I’m happy to judge it*

*Does not apply to pouches unless they’re all a child eats

My youngest was a brilliant eater as a baby. We thought he was going to end up vegetarian or vegan because all he’d eat was fruit and veg and I silently gloated because my eldest was a bloody nightmare with fruit and veg. Then he turned 18months, the asd surfaced quite obviously and it was all change. No veg ever. Only beige nuggets and chips (thanks to my mum for introducing him to McDonald’s) - sometimes the only way we could get fruit and veg into him was through the novelty of pouches. We tried making our own and buying/sterilising the reusable pouches and that worked a bit but it took a lot of time which is limited when you’re disabled yourself. It was the novelty that made him eat the stuff because if you put it in a bowl he refused.

life isn’t as simple as you think OP but you judge away.

Not plastic boxes, I hope?

Sometimes it's confidence and not knowing how to freeze

Sometimes it's that people don't have freezers.

What was I thinking? I could have just turned off the life support machines and I’d have a power point right there next to the bed!

This thread is as defensive as the breast feeding ones!
Ok, the OP isn’t a fan of pouches, but seems to be referring to extended use or high useage rather than condemnation of families on life support using a certain foodstuff. The examples are getting wildly outside the norm.
I think the most out there suggestion is the poster who can’t possibly mash a banana as she’d no longer be able to focus on reading. Like an average family can’t read and take a fork to a banana for 10 seconds.
I’ve said I preferred to avoid pouches for environmental recents, but I’m sure I’d have not stuck to that in intensive care or anything. I do think generally it’s simply about different focuses. Whilst we worked ft I did place value on home cooked food, I grew up in a culture with a huge importance on food and it brings us together l. We socialise around food, it brings comfort too. It’s important to me. I don’t judge those who don’t feel like this, that’s fine. However, it does annoy me the offensive comments like those who cook have no lives: can’t read with their children or neglect other areas of development. It’s quite possible to work ft and cook, if you want to. Fine if you don’t, but quit the superior I’m so busy/ intellectual rhetoric. You can be intelligent, busy, happy and cook. It’s a very up your own arse attitude to presume that others who do are somehow beneath your busy or intelligent life.
Obviously people have mental health issues, physical health issues or restrictions where pouches are best. So it’s great they are an option. But it’s the silly superior ones who have annoyed me, whilst calling the op superior or judgey. Two sides of the same coin.

Do you ever buy yogurts in pots?

They are a convenience food with all the advantages and disadvantages of a convenience food. Like all convenience foods, they can be really useful in certain situations.

But this thread has been pretty interesting in terms of seeing how successful the marketing and packaging has been in terms of making a convenience food appear to be just as fresh/good/nutritious (insert adjective of choice) as a fresh food. It has already been said upthread - these clever, finely-tuned marketing decisions are made to maximise profits on behalf of the manufacturers (as they are obliged to do on behalf of shareholders), not because they care about your child being healthy.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59f75004f09ca48694070f3b/t/5d93d133019c986514158dd3/1569968443400/Fruit_%26_veg_pouches_report_for_web_Oct_2019.pdf

Just out of interest, has ‘Ella’s Kitchen’ or any other baby food manufacturer ever done an ‘Inside the Factory’ programme? I would be surprised if they ever did as it would probably completely destroy the image that they have built up.

For anyone interested in the workings of the food industry, I highly recommend following Fran Bernhardt on LinkedIn. She is a food policy specialist and her work on the children’s food industry is both eye-opening and eye-watering!

LinkedIn profile

I think the most out there suggestion is the poster who can’t possibly mash a banana as she’d no longer be able to focus on reading.

I know, this comment had me howling. The superiority of reading her child a book which makes her better than parents who are too busy mashing bananas. FWIW mashed bananas are repulsive because they turn black within seconds. You can also never get the stains off clothes. I don't know what kind of industrial processing they to do to bananas to prevent them from oxidising but not sure it's as "natural" as claimed.

I think the thread mostly demonstrates a lack of knowledge about nutrition and how willing people are to believe things that are simply told to them by the same companies wanting to sell them things. At the end of the day it's obviously far from the worst thing in the world. Loads of kids survive just fine on pouches, and all kids end up eating junk as teenagers.

It’s a very up your own arse attitude to presume that others who do are somehow beneath your busy or intelligent life.

Yes, if only some people didn't have the very up your own arse attitude and presume that others, who don't feed their children only with home pureed vegetables, are lazy neglectful mothers who don't prioritise their children.

A final point that nobody has mentioned it that pouches, especially savoury ones, simply do not taste good?! It's the taste equivalent of an adult microwave meal, tinned soup or those pre-cooked and pre-seasoned rice you can boil in the bag. It's usually much easier to get kids to eat fresh purees with added butter and maybe a sprinkle of salt/sugar, compared to something that's been watered down, heat-treated and made shelf stable for months.

So if they are being knobs, you must be a knob too?
There’s another option of just not judging

They taste horrible . Prunes ? Apples and parsnips? yuum! 🤢. No wonder the number of children with feeding disorder is on the rise.

I think that why I don’t judge.
I appreciate I was very fortunate in having an upbringing that taught me how to make food easily, quickly, cheaply and with good nutrition. I didn’t have to go work it out, it was modelled and taught to me from a young age.
It would be stressful to be both learning to cook easily and quickly whilst juggling new motherhood, which is a stressful time.

I like tinned soup and boil in the bag rice - doesn’t mean I don’t like other foods. Same as pouches - DT’s liked them and it didn’t impact their enjoyment of other foods as they got older.

I learnt how to cook as I was growing up - didn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate the benefits of using jars and pouches.

It's usually much easier to get kids to eat fresh purees with added butter and maybe a sprinkle of salt/sugar

I'm just wondering, have people considered that some DC are fed commercial food exactly because our children did not eat homemade purees? DC1 refused all my lovingly steamed organic veggies and fruits, full stop. Commercial gloop worked. Yes, the best I could find, but still commercial.
DC2 ate everything, so I guess if you had one of those, you also wouldn't understand. But try.