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.

I don't see what's unreasonable about assuming something very widely available and promoted is suitable for the use it's promoted for.

I'm pretty sure pouches were not originally promoted as a meal

I honestly don’t think they should be allowed at all.

making your own purées isn’t hard, if that’s the route you choose to go down. It’s also not hard to do BLW. Why are we introducing our babies to UPFs so early in life?

The meat and veg ones sound quite meal like to me. I've no skin in the game as I was too tightfisted to pay for pouches but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume a pouch or jar with a meal like name is meant to be used as a meal for a baby.

Plus it's method of food delivery/eating that's dubious. We wean babies off bottles and on to open cups because it's sucking and bad for teeth. We show them how to eat (spoon fed) or present them with food to try after they have seen us eating (baby led weaning) but pouches aren't doing that and they can see the food inside.

"Organic salmon risotto with dill baby pouch 10+ months 190g
Hello I’m an organic risotto rice with salmon, veg + cheese meal – I’m perfectly balanced for growing babies.
Looking for more baby meals for your little one? Try our chicken curry with veggie rice for 10+ months."

Sounds like a meal to me.

Originally I said.

I feel like some people are commenting who haven’t actually read the ingredients on these things. They aren’t ultra processed or with a load of unnatural preservative and there is no added salt or sugar.

The cottage pie one has potatoes, vegetables stock, onions, beef, carrots, tomato puree, peas, cinnamon, cornflour, oregano
and states no added salt or sugar

i think it is pretty easy to be confused that this is ok to use as baby food.

I think they've been very cleverly marketed. I used them hear there but at times when I might have bought convenience food anyway.

My big beef with Ella's kitchen, organix et al, is the proliferation of crunchy snack food that is little more than air with stuff sprayed on (posh wotsits as my DH called them) I know some kids are fussy (I have one of them) but I do think they encourage parents to give too many snacks and ones that aren't actually filling at all. I bought some of the biscuits once and was shocked to see that they had more sugar than a rich tea biscuit. My kids still enjoy a rich tea and a cup of milk now! Buts mad that the ones marketed for babies are so sugary.

Perhaps UPF is the wrong word then, buts it’s still processed food. I can bet it doesn’t resemble a cottage pie in the slightest. It takes 15 minutes of active cooking to make a cottage pie, and you can portion it down and freeze it.

Leaving aside all the contents pros and cons. As recently written about by Bee Wilson, sucking purée from a pouch isn't a way to learn to eat on so many levels.

How is it relevant what flavours they made almost 20 years ago?
They are currently being marketed as complete and balanced meals when they aren't.

Oh goodness me, it is totally relevant because it shows manufactures are no longer thinking about the appropriate place pouches might occupy in the range of feeding methods available. This links in in part with the original post and recent press on the subject of pouches

I couldn't do BLW with my oldest as she wouldn't even pick up the food, let alone put it in her mouth.

I think that people like having pouches as it's soul destroying to create lots of home made purees, just to have to bin them because the baby won't touch any of them. People would prefer to spend that time with the baby, rather than cooking food that won't be eaten.

Agree re the posh wotsits plus making a snack look like a very unhealthy adult/child snack makes transitioning to unhealthy snack seem an obv route

This is very few and far between, and again it doesn’t take that long to do, in theory.

When you’re cooking for yourself you can easily put extra veg etc., on to steam so you can puree it down. I feel like a line has been crossed by these brands where it’s gone from an easy thing to use occasionally to something that is used all the time, and they have entire lines of unhealthy snacks that mimic junk food in adults.

I also wonder if fear of choking plays into this. I think there is a lot of fear put into you when you have a baby.

The baby could be put in a high chair, and still be engaged with, whilst a parent cooks some food. What is so special about these pouches, that they will be accepted, yet the home cooked food won't?

Quite. It’s not hard to chop up some carrots and boil them, then puree them down.

My kitchen wasn't large enough to put a high chair into.

I think cooking extra is much easier if you have had enough sleep and can function properly. Not all babies are that easy.

The vegetable ones are just veg and water - admittedly more processed than of prepared at home but still just vegetables. I don’t see an issue with these type at all.

It is if you’re working long hours or if you don’t have enough electric.

Again, rare circumstances, and the cost of one pouch (£1.30 for one strawberries and apple pouch!)would cover the cost of a kilo of carrots and cooking them down

Of course, but the baby has to sleep at some point, and food has to be provided for any other members of the family, does it not?

Well in that case I’m glad dd always spat out every pouch I tried her with (except the 100% banana ones) and I never bothered! I think the bigger issue though are the pouches that advertise being 4 months +.

I did give her banana pouches from 4 months but I was advised to by the GP because of her CMPA. Most babies don’t need that…