Ella’s Kitchen pouches in the Times today

[sjxoxo]

my mum sent me an article today in the times about Ella’s kitchen pouches, saying some of them contain more sugar than a can of coke!!! I’ve had a look and it seems to be the fruity ones. Apparently worse if you let the child suck on the pouch.. but horrified as baby boy (6m) loves these and eats a ton of them.
Food for thought!!

“They also said that pouches were worse for teeth than food from jars that is fed with a spoon. The contents are designed to be sucked directly from the pouch, meaning the food spends more time in contact with a baby’s teeth just as they are erupting. This puts them at risk of tooth erosion and decay.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9ecdeb28-fe15-11ec-ab20-2fd534744dd7?shareToken=dd6b2090cb8f72df1d47a2ce5eb7adb8
(not sure the share token will work)

It's not the ingredients,it's the fact it's pureed that's more of an issue.

I’m not an expert but why is puréed bad?

@RandomQuest youre right they don’t sell them here but I have a stash of them as i find the ‘quick’ baby food here is really limited to certain fruits and veg that are really repetitive & not at all adventurous! As they get older it’s things like ‘legumes provencale’ or meat and veg dishes. They don’t really do mixes of ‘interesting’ veg or fruit. Things like mango, blueberry, sweet potato, parsnip, pumpkin are quite hard to impossible to find here already puréed & a faff to purée so these are bits I tend to have a stash of! I mix with yogurts and baby porridge a bit but will do more of that! Xx

Two reasons really.

1. Purées tend to sit in the mouth (especially when slurped through a pouch straw) and coat the teeth in sugar which leads to decay.

1. Purées do nothing to teach babies the vital skills they need to learn during weaning, they contribute nothing to oral development, fine motor skills, texture exposure, social eating skills etc. It's just mush, not food.

I don't think any harm every now and then and I use these still when we're out and about as she can hold it herself in the pram and it's easy, but at home she has just whole fruit. I always make sure she has some water after to wash her mouth out as well

Totally, French SIL babysat for us once when we were on holiday, she said had bought baby food specially and was dismayed DS didn’t want to eat a jar of puréed green beans but unsurprisingly said he did enjoy his (extra sugary) pom pote for pudding!

Bollocks @sjxoxo they're not designed to be sucked they say quite clearly always use a spoon.

Yes this. If you have a child that doesn’t each much and suffers from constipation the prunes pouches can be great.

can't stand Ella's kitchen pouches, too pureed and watery, expensive and same-y. when travelling around australia, i was amazed by the quality of the ingredients and that it had some substance and was very good value.

www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/1101609/why-your-dentist-does-not-like-you-drinking-smoothies/

Not as simple as "just give your baby the same food as you". I used these as I was terrified the baby would choke. I have some deep routed fears after having to perform cpr on someone who choked on a vegetable. For me they let me build my confidence with food and now he eats everything and anything🤷🏻‍♀️ Haven't found a food he doesn't like yet.

Fibre which is important for gut health and developmental of muscles needed for speaking.

Rubbish. Pureed broccoli has exactly the same amount of fibre as whole broccoli, and the same holds true for all food. Pureeing it doesn't change the nutritional makeup!

Vegetables are different hence the saying ' eat your fruit, blend your veg'

Vegetables are different hence the saying ' eat your fruit, blend your veg'

No they aren't. Blending vegetables doesn't reduce the fibre at all.

...or increase it.

No it doesn't, but aren't we talking about fruit pouches?

Anyway, I'm past caring now ,feed your babies what you want, they'll all be chugging back energy drinks on the way to high school before long😱😂

They are handy things to stick in a bag with some rice cakes and veg sticks for a day out. As long as it's only part of a mixed diet I cant get to worked up. My eldest are teens now with all their teeth still. No one died, imo it's fine in moderation like any other processed food. I didny always have the time to be perfect. We're all still here, getting level 9 gcses and other similar stuff.

Blending fruit doesn't reduce the fibre either. I am really struggling to understand your point here.

It's nothing new. Surely everyone knows this?

Blending fruit doesn't reduce the fibre either. I am really struggling to understand your point here.

Just blending doesn't. Blending then pushing through a sieve to get it super smooth - as I assume happens with the pouches - leaves all the tough (and therefore fibrous) bits behind.

More reasons baby led weaning is so much better than feeding purees at all.

Blending fruit doesn't reduce the fibre either. I am really struggling to understand your point here.

it changes the fibre

sugar the bitter truth on YouTube is an hour and half long, but he is a endocrinologist who knows his stuff and explains all this and why fibre is so important in whole fruit

I think a lot of these brands play on mums’ anxiety about choking and about eating fruit and veg, and market themselves as a safe and healthy option. Which I find annoying and manipulative, especially when just giving the baby a bit of what you’re having is cheaper and works fine.

But this is partly because years ago, I had a colleague who did research into baby food pouches and jars - chatting to her about what she had found put me right off them, and pushed me towards BLW before it was popular.

Ok, you're talking about fibre, the issue is with sugar and acid.