Manufactured Baby Food - not a surprise

[FrauMoose]

www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/10/baby-food-nutrition-weaning-breastmilk

[AnythingNotEverything]

I basically want to repeat every ManchesterHistoryGirl said.

This article isn't about BLW, it's about pre-prepared food out of boxes not being as nutritious as homemade food. (Let's assume we mean healthy homemade food, with no salt added etc, just for argument's sake).

No shit Sherlock.

[AnythingNotEverything]

I basically want to repeat every ManchesterHistoryGirl said.

This article isn't about BLW, it's about pre-prepared food out of boxes not being as nutritious as homemade food. (Let's assume we mean healthy homemade food, with no salt added etc, just for argument's sake).

No shit Sherlock.

[AnythingNotEverything]

I basically want to repeat every ManchesterHistoryGirl said.

This article isn't about BLW, it's about pre-prepared food out of boxes not being as nutritious as homemade food. (Let's assume we mean healthy homemade food, with no salt added etc, just for argument's sake).

No shit Sherlock.

[AnythingNotEverything]

I basically want to repeat every ManchesterHistoryGirl said.

This article isn't about BLW, it's about pre-prepared food out of boxes not being as nutritious as homemade food. (Let's assume we mean healthy homemade food, with no salt added etc, just for argument's sake).

No shit Sherlock.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

The only surprise about this new report is that packaged baby food has half the nutrition of home-made. That's pretty appalling. I mean, if it was just as calorie-dense but with lower vitamins, I wouldn't have been surprised, but they say that babies need to eat twice as much from a jar as from home-made to get the same protein and energy.

Or, to put it another way, you need to buy two jars/pouches for the equivalent nutrition of a few tablespoons of home-made.

They show that ounce for ounce, packaged baby food has only the same nutrition levels as breastmilk (formula is 6kcal/100ml denser IIRC) but you'd never give a 6mo nearly half a pint of baby food, as that would be three or four jars!

[Thurlow]

There is some very, very clever advertising going on with the pouches v jars - we weaned just a year ago and most people were using pouches and believing they were just the same as homemade food, whereas jars were evil.

Of course homemade food is going to be healthier, unless it's cooked a la MIL with two cartons of salt in every dish...

We actually did use quite a lot of jars in the early stages for various reasons. Not ideal of course, but that was the way it worked out. But then we had a baby who should have been born in the 1970s who also thought that baby-led weaning was the devil's work and only ate the smoothest purees, hand fed to her as if she was a Roman emperor

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

@thurlow There is some very, very clever advertising going on with the pouches v jars - we weaned just a year ago and most people were using pouches and believing they were just the same as homemade food, whereas jars were evil.

That is exactly what I don't like about the pouches. There are many out that who believed they are just as good as homemade. (I don't understand why jar is worse either). I'm equally appalled about advertising on fruit juices and smoothies (like innocent). But I do drink them knowing they are no way one of my 5 a day. They are really tasty . But I also love a can of coke too! And a chocolate bar.

[gamerchick]

Heh, I would have loved to see how this thread would have gone if it was an article about formula rather than babyfood

[ouryve]

I think this study is really aimed at the people who think that if a 3 or 4 month old (or younger) baby is wanting lots of milk, they must be "hungry", so let's spoon some heinz chocolate pudding down it, rather than give it more milk or a higher protein formula.

[AnythingNotEverything]

Wowzers - serious multiple post fail. Sorry folks

[mrsmartin1984]

I think it is shocking. Although it wasn't about BLW but because I chose to do that it gives me control of what I am giving my DD without going to the effort of having to make her own food and purree them up. This was the other option. But I always thought those jars looked disguising and I wouldn't give my child anything to eat that I wouldn't eat myself. And yes I know I can give my child crap to eat but I know they are crap. So I don't. These companies on the other hand were advertising these horrible little jars as "organic", "homemade" and "mum's own recipe". Which is misguided

I had loads of other Mum's laugh at me at one of the baby groups I go to. Because I didn't want to feed my 3/4month old these jars. And was planning to wait until she was ready and could eat properly. It just validates what I have done

[LittleBearPad]

It's not shocking that the jars/pouches aren't as good as homemade. As other posters have said, no shit Sherlock.

They aren't as nutrient rich but they serve a purpose and they aren't full of crap. Checking the ingredient list shows this.

[HavantGuard]

I'm not surprised about the huge gap in nutrition. I think it's because they make a small amount of ingredients go further by adding water and then thickening agents, so there's actually less fruit, veg or meat per 100g than in homemade.

[HavantGuard]

They use apple juice as a sweetener. It looks fine on the ingredients list but it's still adding sugar.

[HavantGuard]

This one is a good example.

The highest % ingredient in the food is 'cooking water.' So, water. It's listed before the veg so we know it makes up more than 36% of the contents. So over a third of that jar of food is added water. The corn starch and tapioca starch are thickeners. So it doesn't look like the jar is over a third water. It is called Sweet Potato and beef, but just over a quarter of the jar is sweet potato (27%) and only 8% is beef.

If you made it at home and weren't looking at profit margins, you would never use that much cooking water when you blended it. As a result you wouldn't need to thicken it because you hadn't made it too watery to begin with. If you filled the jar with homemade food it would have a much higher nutritional value because it wouldn't lose a third of the jar space to water and thickener.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

What are "baby grade" vegetables?

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

You can feed a BLW baby with rice cakes and those Organix puff snacks. DD loves all of them. She's a BLW baby and I did buy here the Organix stuff when out and about. When she's a bit older, she loves the Organix oat bars too.

[HavantGuard]

Baby grade vegetables are misshapen, bruised stuff that isn't considered good enough for supermarket shelves.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Going by the state if the veg in some shops I dread to think. Animal feed basically then

[HavantGuard]

If it was just appearance I would agree that it's not a big deal. They use fruit that's bruised and battered too, because you can't tell in a purée. It's way down at the bottom of things I'd be concerned about in bought baby food. The top would be the bulking out with water and thickener and the sweeteners (apple juice) that often aren't declared on the labels.

[HavantGuard]

Fruit and veg

[HavantGuard]

Particularly as this stuff is aimed at small babies from 4 months. Filling them up with expensive thickened water is robbing them of the calories and nutrition the need to grow.