Do jars seem 'bad'? If so, why?

[NellyBluth]

I had this conversation with other mums and thought it was fascinating how we all felt that there was something 'bad', or 'guilty', about feeding 8/9mo's jars - but not pouches.

We heavily weaned DD with jars because neither she nor us were too keen on BLW, but she took such little food that spending ages cooking her purees etc until she wanted lots of food seemed a waste or time and effort. I bought jars because they were cheaper than pouches, and we still use them sometimes when we are in a mad rush. Recently she has had that dreaded tummy bug that has done the rounds and the only solid food she is really interested in is jars again, which led to this conversation because I fed her a jar while we were out.

Now personally I don't mind too much - it's not exactly a Happy Meal for a 9mo, after all - but I do agree that there is something about the pouches that make them seem 'better' or 'healthier' and for some reason I felt I had to explain about the jars. The other mum who uses jars also felt the same, though neither of us could really explain it and new it was quite silly to feel a bit defensive about using them. Does anyone else feel like this? Is it the branding of pouches, maybe? Or the fact that they seem like something our parents generation might have weaned on?

I do wonder when he will start joining us for evening meals, but right now he's often falling asleep before OH gets in from work! He is only 6.5 months old, so it will be a while I suppose. But that's why jars/pouches are so much more convenient at the moment.
He can eat about half/third of a large jar in one sitting, so he tends to have the same thing for lunch the next day. Dog (or me!) will happily finish anything left over. So 10 jars for a fiver will last about 8-10 days. I think that's quite cheap.

I do read all the ingredients before I buy, and can't see anything wrong with the jars compared to the pouches. In fact, I prefer the jars as I can re-use them or recycle them very easily.

stinkin, sorry but that is rubbish. There was not routinely bits of glass in baby food in the 90s

there were at the time the youngest I babysat was weaning

Honestly, maybe the mum was teasing you.

what? planting bits of glass in her childs food so she could "tease" me by pulling them out on front of me???

I don't think it's likely to happen today, I've eaten years worth of Jam out of glass jars without any shards, but having seen it back then I now have a mental block about babies being fed out of jars, It'll always make me cringe

That's more likely than there routinely being pieces of broken glass in baby food in the 90s! I think you are thinking of the man that tried to blackmail Heinz in 1989 by contaminating baby food?

she was a single mum so not the same person, there wasn't a man in the house, and it wasn't '89 either it was early 90s

AFAIK she didn't sue either, she just carried on

I was told not to use purely organic as they can't fortify with vitamins so I used a mix.

No, I mean the "contaminated baby food" story was around in 1989 because of the man that contaminated food to blackmail Heinz - those tamper proof lids were introduced shortly after. I find it incredibly hard to believe that if a mother found glass in a jar of baby food she wouldn't report it to anyone

ok if you haven't heard of something it didn't happen
why do you think you would have heard of it, since she didn't find it unusual and didn't seem like someone who was about to complain, she carried on!

What sort of scam would involve her having me as a witness, I was barely a teen and was never asked to confirm that I saw it??

There are always going to be a percentage of errors in factories, they churn out so many! What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter to me how unlikely the errors are (they are NOT impossible since 1989 Sam ), as having seen it in the past it has put me off for life, can't you understand that? I have in no way said that people who use jars now are likely to be feeding their kids glass, I have just explained why I will always bawk a little at babies being fed out of jars! you would too!

If you were very young then, you have probably mis-remembered. Think about it - a mother opens a jar of baby food, picks out GLASS and then feeds it to her baby? Without reporting it to anyone? It wasn't normal in the 1990s to find glass in baby food.

I'm not in the habit of "misremembering" my teens

unless you were that mother Sam, and I don't think I've outed that mother in any identifiable way, why are you so defensive?

Not defensive, it's just nonsense that jars of baby food was ever routinely full of glass

The main reason I fed mine mostly homemade was the cost- why pay £1 for something I could make at home for a few pence?!

I occasionally used pouches when out and about or on holiday- never thought they were nutritionally better, just easier to carry and less likely to spill.

As for glass 'routinely' in jars I think you are mis-remembering, she was probably just picking out lumps. There was some kind of scandal about glass in baby food but it was a one-off.

It isn't the idea that there routinely was glass in baby food jars that bothers me so much as the idea that the mother just kept using the same brand or jars and never raised it with anyone as an issue!

Of course they weren't routinely full of glass - the eighties weren't that bad that it would just be ignored

Anyone else thinking of ?

Pootles -

If nothing else, though, that memory proves that a lot of people just do inherently think that there is something worse about jars as opposed to pouches.

This glass in jar myths reminded me of this from new zealand

www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10794860

Basically plastic discs are found in baby food pouches. Just go to show pouches aren't inherently safer.

I find it VERY hard to believe that anyone would feed their baby food that had bits of glass in it....why would you risk it when there are plenty of other things you could feed them..??

SarryB I think it's probably a one off bad batch like the plastic disc in pouch I linked.

Yes, it must just be a one-off batch. But would you really sit there and pick glass out...wouldn't you just chuck it and buy a different brand?

You'd report it and it would be all over the papers!