Is there anything wrong with baby food such as Ella's kitchen stuff?

[Chocoholism]

I know some have added salts and sugars and I do plan To make my own food for my baby but I was just looking in supermarket today and read ingredients of Ella's kitchen packet and it was all organic ingredients and no extras.
Presumably that's good food then?
There are other ones I saw too such as peter rabbit. What are your thoughts

My 10 month old DD was fed everything totally from scratch and mix of blw until around 6 weeks ago when she started to totally refuse any purées I gave her! I bought a pouch of Ella's just to try and she loved it. She now has blw type foods at lunch (sandwich, cheese on toast etc) and an Ella's pouch and fruit/rice pudding/apple crumble jars for pudding.

She's perfectly healthy and thriving.

Once in a while not a problem in my view. We don't use fruit ones as it's v easy to get ds to eat real fruit. Also I use plain yogurt instead of buying specific baby ones.
Occasionally we use savoury ones.

Honestly, the woman comes on here asking a clear and straightforward question about pouches of food and gets 50 lectures on BLW

I'm actually a BLW-er myself but for fucks sake, give it a rest.

choco the pouches are so much better than jars were in the bad old days, and the organic ones such as Ella's really don't have anything nasty in them. As others have said, fresh home-made food is always better, but there's nothing wrong with using ready-made baby as a part of your babies diet, as long as that's not all they're being fed

Nothing wrong with them but expensive I feel and you're own stuff will taste better

I cook in large batches and freeze so its hassle free.

Your

All hard and pouches tats the same. They are very low percentage wise of the "flavour" it claims to be and the rest is made up with apple and stuff.

They are fine for occasional/on the go use but ideally you want varied tastes and textures and to get your dcs used to natural variations in taste of things which you don't get with jars as they all taste the same.

Jars and pouches

And as a pp said it is kind of like having to wean twice as they then have to be weaned off jars onto proper food

Nothing wrong with them. They're just freaking expensive!!!

SaltyGoodness - Honestly, the woman comes on here asking a clear and straightforward question about pouches of food and gets 50 lectures on BLW

I agree!

OP, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with jars and pouches. Its is cheaper to blend or mash up your own food, and if you cook good food at home you should have plenty that it suitable to give to your baby. But equally you can give them jars and pouches too if you want.

DD ate a lot of jars because for various reasons I was struggling at the time to prepare and cook decent food. It's had no impact I can see on what she eats now. She even happily eats kidneys... Blw is probably the easiest way of feeding your child if your own diet matches stuff that a weaning baby can eat, but personally I'm not entirely convinced it has that big an impact on what they eat in the long-term, I see it a bit as similar to people claiming their strict routine helped their baby sleep through the night - not just that some babies like sleep, some babies like food.

I always had a few pouches - much easier if out and about. we did a mix of finger food and mush, and the mush was a mixture of stuff I'd made and pouches. There were a couple which he really liked - the Ella's pork and apple one always went down well. I wouldn't have wanted to feed him exclusively off them as it's quite expensive and some of them weren't very nice, but they were a fabulous backup.

Madrigals give it a bloody rest. I think we all get that you like BLW. I like it too. But it's not a religion ffs

fights urge to shout "it's just weaning" everyone does finger foods anyway someone just invented the term and suckers bought the book

All three of mine had jars and pouches as well as home cooked food. Really useful. Especially when you want to get somewhere and you know you'll need to feed them. I used to give dd3 one of the pouches while the other two ran about the playpark or were at an activity.

They are all healthy, not particularly fussy, and haven't yet turned into frogs.

I gave some pet hates though.

Those bloody rice cake things which cost a fortune. I have seen people refer to them as 'biscuits,

Much cheaper to buy a packet of rich tea fingers.

Oh yes and the baby version of other biscuits. Who's gonna really feed their baby 12 gingerbread men? Go to a bakery by a proper one that doesn't taste of cardboard and share it between you and baby/older sister.

Two happy sprogs without another 11 going stale in the cupboard

Absobloodylutely

Yes. And when so things given a title/status like BLW has, people become so adamant to only use that way.

It's far better to be flexible I think and not limit yourself to what one "expert" or book or group of people at toddler group do.

For convenience occasionally, no. For every meal until they are 1, yes.

Some of them taste disgusting, a lot of them have very poor nutritional content and none of them help your child to learn to eat "real" food. The NHS no longer recommend pureeing everything as drinking liquidised food from a spoon doesn't help a baby learn how to eat or feed themselves a varied diet of solid food.

Mashing some of your food with a fork to feed them or letting them feed themselves solids as with BLW helps them to try different textures and tastes. It's also a lot cheaper!

I found this blog very interesting - here

I would say blw does become something of a religion with some people, actually

Yes. And when so things given a title/status like BLW has, people become so adamant to only use that way

It's far better to be flexible I think and not limit yourself to what one "expert" or book or group of people at toddler group do

There's more people criticising BLW on this thread than there is purée

The BLW book is a good read regardless of which method you use to wean your child on to solids. The book talks about how and why purée is around and why it isn't required beyond 6 months old.

I'm a cynic and think baby food companies have packaged a normal baby jar of food in to a "finest, better quality" pouch. It's just the same food as jars and millions of people have brought in to the fact that the pouch is somehow better than a jar.

Baby food in a jar/pouch is basically heated at such a high temperature that any nutrients and goodness is lost in the making process.

I wouldn't eat anything with a sell by date of 3 years in advance, would you?