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

I didnt do blw weaning. I dumped some of what we were eating on the hughchair tray and let her get on with it

sometimes used jars or pouches but she wasnt fussed

she hated being spoon fed so the dumping of the stuff on the tray was a last resort at the time

I generally make my own but use Ella's pouches if out and about (although personal choice is only their fruit and veg ones as would rather make my own shepherds pie!

Anything that is 100% organic natural products with nothing added are totally fine. IMO I'd say Ella's Kitchen are the best on the market.

My husband came home from an army course saying that his ration pack had contained a pouch of puree absolutely identical to Ella's kitchen pouches. He said it was delicious.

So fruit pouches - good for babies and soldiers.

DD has a couple a week if we're out and about and she's already had too much banana (staple weaning food but can cause constipation).

The convenience and lack of added crap is great. They're also good for introducing flavour. We use Ella's or Plum - I think they're quite tasty, but only if warmed. They're also great if you have any allergies as most are egg and dairy free.

The problem I have with them is that they are very samey in texture. Normal food has a variety of textures and lumps and bumps and tastes. Giving pouches every day doesn't expand the range of food the baby eats and can manage.

The Hipp organic fruit pots are great for a dessert if you're out but don't want warm yoghurt (yuck). They taste like apple sauce and seem to help DD avoid the dreaded constipation.

For me, here great as part of a varied diet. I eat premade food occasionally. It's not poison.

Problems with Ellas and similar:

1. They are ultra heat treated to make them long life, which destroys nutrients. So will contain much less vitamins etc than home made.

2. A lot of them are mostly made of apple (even if the front of the packet says something else, the ingredients list often has apple as the first one ). So not much variety in reality. Also very very sugary (yes there is no added sugar but the apple contains loads of sugar). That's why babies like them of course

3. They are very very smooth - so not teaching your baby to manage lumps. IIRC the 10+ months pouches were about as lumpy as the home made puree I was giving DD at 6 months.

4. Expensive!

Nothing wrong with them sometimes, just not all the time.

I actually think my dc's got a better balanced diet with a few prepared baby meals as I jut didn't buy the same variety of fruit and veg. I made my own from family meals as much as possible, did a bit of blw but used quite a few plum and ella's meals for things that we didn't cook often.

My dc's are well past the baby food stage but I still buy the fruit pots/pouches and organix crisps for them.

I once made a huge batch of something with celeriac in and ds wouldn't touch it - huge waste of my time and money!

Only the 4-6 months ones are very smooth. The 7+ months ones aren't completely smooth, textured I'd say The 10+ ones are lumps and sauce, or rice and sauce, or pasta and sauce.

But yes, lots of apple...

I have observed over many years (I have 5 of different ages) that babies weaned on shop bought baby food tend not to like either home prepared baby food or, much later, a great many normal meals.

I believe that because the prepared food is so bland compared to real food, it conditions their palates and they develop very fussy habits.

Nothing wrong with them occasionally, im not keen on the taste though.

Nothing wrong with not doing blw either, I tried with 3 of my 4 and only onw of them was interested. Ds4 was the worst, wouldnt touch any finger foods until the week he turned 1.

Some people are blw evangelicals. Others see blw as some sort of personal attack in them and are very defensive about it. Most people are in the middle.
I agree that pouches are just jars rebranded for the middle class.
I doubt it makes much difference in the end. Often they become fussy toddlers whatever you do with them as babies.

I agree they aren't a problem occasionally. Funnily enough I don't think it's easy to get them to eat the savoury ones if they're not used to them.