I Still Give My Three Year Old Baby Food – Review: Ella’s Kitchen Fruit Purees

Now before the health nuts and book parents going absolutely haywire, it’s just as the occasional snack. And if you think about it baby food is still just pureed grown-up food.  Plus it’s not like I hand my kid a tiny jar and a rubber covered spoon.  Ella’s Kitchen out of Canada now provides a much niftier way to provide your kids a nutritional snack – in a pouch.

Ella’s Kitchen Fruit Puree is appropriate for all ages.  Technically it is a Stage 1 baby food; so ultra smooth puree with no chunks.  This translates to sheer perfection from age 4 months on up.  It is also organic and all natural.  There’s not a single ingredient on the back panel that I couldn’t pronounce nor would be unwilling to put in my mouth without all its poly-syllabic friends.  Even the people with the jars will slip in a preservative or a pinch of salt from time to time.

It comes conveniently packaged in those cool little pouches that my daughter absolutely loves.  The instructions on the back read “Shake Me, Squeeze Me, Slurp Me” and she takes those to heart.  I refrigerate them for her although if your little one still eats baby food as their only means of nutrition they are totally shelf-stable.

To be fair my daughter calls it juice and not baby food.  That’s a line even I am not willing to cross. (Plus we are at that awkward stage of the pre-school years where anything for babies is bad and she’s a “big girl.”)  I actually discovered Ella’s Kitchen’s line of Smoothie Fruits at Starbucks first.  Those are marketed for all ages although they are still fruit purees.  My daughter loved those so much that I decided to try the baby foods with her.  She gobbles them down too.  I tried them too.  Surprisingly they taste really, really good.  Even the veggie loaded ones.  I admit to trying the strained peas once and those were gross.  And I like peas.  Ella’s Kitchen has mastered the art of fruited veggies so perfectly I’m willing to ingest them, regularly.

All this works out as a fantastic way to trick your picky little eater to slurping down bona fide vegetables.  The pouches fit in all but the most modest purses and they look really cool.  A note of warning, after you twist off the cap they are less the spill proof.  One good squeeze of a freshly opened one and you get a projectile missile of mush.  (I think there’s still some on headliner of my car.)  Then when you get down to the bottom of the pouch it does take just a smidge of dexterity to get the last mouthful out.  You have to squish all of it up to the top before you can get at it. It’s a minor learning curve but not too terrible.

Altogether it’s a great on-the-go, nutritious snack.  And what a conversation starter in mom circles, right?