to think advertising of baby pouches needs to be restricted?

[Pearl87]

Ella's Kitchen outright admit their product should only be used sparingly. A lot of parents use these pouches as the main source of their child's nutrition.

Baby pouches as part of a balanced varied diet should be fine. In the same way you wouldn’t eat a microwave meal 7 days a week 3 times a day. It’s fine as part of a mixed diet but not great as a dietary staple

Currently MN is promoting pouches in the ads.

Sucking 'food' on the move or stationary is always going to be worse even than jarred food spoon fed.

Again - no preservatives are listed on the pouches.

Think you’re projecting there. Lots of us also working FT who for a whole variety of reasons (allergies) did home cooking. No it wasn’t all organic and no it wasn’t mush.

If someone is doing a mix and match of these pouches plus what’s being eaten at home that’s probably not too bad (don’t know, haven’t seen the ingredients). It’s when these are the full time staples I’d imagine is the problem.

The problem is actually not misadvertising, unless someone is saying they outright lied. It’s parents not reading the ingredients.

My DH hates these threads cos I insist on reading them aloud to him in a 'oh god, another one of these again! Listen to this one!'

DS would never eat most of what we ate, so that didn't work. He did enjoy some of the pouches and I tried to get ones with things in that I wouldn't cook, like spag bol as I don't like beef.

If the labels were deliberately misleading that is wrong.

I agree with this. Eating as a family is the best thing you can do, but most people don’t eat the kind of meals that we want to share with a baby. During the week I mainly cook things like stir fries and pasta dishes that aren’t suitable weaning foods.

Oh come on. It is obvious. I know I'm overweight because I love junk food. Most people who are overweight know it's because they eat junk food, or good food but just too much of it. The obesity crisis isn't a mystery at all!

People know junk food is bad for them and eat it anyway because it tastes good. It's not a bloody mystery, it's just bad choices that are incredibly hard to change because junk food is addictive.

I was raised on junk food, was an overweight kid and am now an overweight adult with a jacked up metabolism that loves junk food. That's what happens when you raise your kids on junk food. The NHS and government have been telling the public this for at least a decade as far as I can remember. It's not unknown or shocking. It's why I don't give my baby processed baby food or pouches!

Honestly I don’t why people need to told that feeding their children from pouches is a bad thing. It’s crazy.

Your ire is misplaced, and all a bit bulgy eyed indignation

You know what,I work FT inc shifts. Returned FT after 6mth.Not using pouches Doesn’t make me sanctimonious. Frankly It’s easier. The cubes go into nursery to be heated up. I batch cook because it’s cost effective, it’s easy, I can fill freezer. Mix & match cubes for meals. Minimal effort for weeks worth of food.

So, yes pouches are available and convenient that’s why they sell. However they’re not the only nutritional choice for busy or working parents

Preservatives aren't added to the food - pressure or vacuum packing in jars and pouches is what preserves the food.

The issue with baby food is that it is very low in nutrients and high in (fruit) sugar.

Some pet food is labelled as 'not a complete diet' - maybe we need similar for baby food.
The savoury pouches should say clearly this meal provides 5% of your baby's daily nutrient requirements or similar, suitable in addition to a mixed diet.

I also think kids snacks, yoghurts and pouches shouldn't be allowed to say 'no added sugar' if they are adding fruit sugars by blending, pureeing or condensing fruit. It's still sugar.

There has to be preservatives in it. Or it wouldn't last months on a shelf at room temperature without rotting.

Sugar is a preservative and all the posts I've seen about the pouches being terrible have said that they contain more than a whole days recommended amount of sugar for a baby in one pouch. So that will be it.

Apparently toddlers eat them now! No idea why but they are.

The ingredients are fine. But don't you think it's surprising to find that baby food has such low levels of nutrients? That a savoury casserole or curry can't actually be used a meal replacement?
Even if you read all the ingredients and see that it says carrot, rice and chicken I don't think most people would be doing quick calculations of what percentage of their baby's iron intake it was.

Have you never heard of preserving foods? Canning food at high temperatures to create a vacuum seal?

I admit I haven’t seen the back of one of these and assumed it has RDA %’s on as well as ingredients. Is that not a labelling requirement? 🤷‍♀️

Me neither. Don’t know why it’s come as such a big surprise.

There has to be preservatives in it. Or it wouldn't last months on a shelf at room temperature without rotting.
No that's not true. Lots of food has a long shelf life due to processes like ultra heat treatment, pressure canning and so on.
There are lots of criticisms that can be levelled at commercially produced baby food but "full of preservatives" isn't generally one of them.

I haven’t seen the panorama episode but the dash of lemon is where the ‘nasty’ is. When something claims to be from concentrate - they don’t have to disclose what’s in the concentrate and that’s how they can hide the preservatives. The concentrate will come from a different manufacturer, but because the ingredient is listed as ‘dash of lemon from concentrate’, technically it’s disclosed but the ingredient isn’t further broken down in to ingredients of the ingredient. Not sure if that made any sense!

RDAs of what?
They have grams of sugar, fibre, carbs, fat etc but I highly doubt many people could tell you how many grams of anything their baby should be eating a day.

I don’t think it’s fair to say ‘it’s obvious they are rubbish’, when they are marketed as being organic, healthy and full of a good selection of foods. Look, this is from the Boots site for Ella’s beef stew. Granted there’s not much beef compared to some other ingredients but why would any pouch user not just assume they are a perfectly fine meal replacement based on this:

Product details
Hello, I’m an organic beef, potatoes + veg meal. I’m yummy and perfectly balanced for growing babies.

Ingredients
Organic Vegetable Stock 35% (Water and Organic Vegetables: Organic Carrots, Organic Parsnips, Organic Leeks, Organic Onions, Organic Swedes, Organic Peppercorns, Organic Marjoram, Organic Parsley and Thyme),
Organic Carrots 22%,
Organic Potatoes 22%,
Organic Beef 11%,
Organic Tomatoes 6%,
Organic Parsnips 4%,
Organic Mixed Herbs <1%

One of the major concerns is that people were using them long after the initial weaning phase too, I see toddlers sucking on them, terrible for teeth.

i fed mine ordinary food, where appropriate removed before I added more seasoning. I mashed food with a fork and shredded meat with two forks. By 8/9 months they were eating the same as us 95% of the time just cut up small, and fond of curries, chillies etc

A study in New Zealand last year found 80% of infants (average age of 8.4 months) had been fed pouches and 20% had 1 or more a day - I would imagine the numbers are similar here.
It's clearly a big issue.

@Feverdream02

pasta is fine for little ones, just don’t add salt during the cooking. Mine were eating pesto and bolagnaise with penne or fusilli pasta at 6 months, long before the trend of baby led weaning

It's not about the ingredients, it's about the nutritional values. They are clearly listed on the packets, this is a screenshot from their website. It's there in plain English to read, who thinks it's a good idea to give a baby 18 grams of sugar?