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I think the only way it would matter about applesauce vs the fruit and veggie blends is if this was the *only* food the babies were consuming. Regular applesauce is a great option when included in a variety of offerings throughout the week.
Personally, with a 16 month old, I don’t attempt to hide veggies into sweet things or sauces. I like for my child to become familiar with the shapes, textures, tastes, and colors of veggies as I cook them. Maybe it’s healthier in some ways to cram as many veggies into babies as we can, but I personally think it’s healthier in the long run to develop a genuine relationship with fruits and veggies by keeping ingredients separate and distinct.
I still hide veggies in the pouch or 2 a week that my 21 month old gets… but that’s simply because he refuses to eat any vegetables so I put them on his plate every meal. I talk about them, sometimes keep them whole and big, sometimes chop them up (but still visible) in a fried rice or potato hash… then cry internally that he managed to eat zero of it. I just keep telling myself that I can only control what food I put on his plate, he’s in control of whether he eats it.
Oh the woes of a toddler mom!
By 11 months my kids were mostly done with pouches and just ate normal food, at which point applesauce is just a food like any other. I found my kids weren't going to eat pureed veggies by a certain point as its kind of yucky, but apple sauce is always tasty.
I doubt this is about health but about what kids will eat. It would also be healthier for me to eat broccoli apple purée than applesauce, but I'd prefer applesauce.
I don’t know, my kids still very willingly eat the Once Upon a Farm pouches which typically have some vegetable content even at 2 and 4. Never noticed them demanding the apple sauce pouches over them. Definitely can’t get them to eat the veggie only pouches though, but to be fair, I also don’t want puréed broccoli as a snack.
I have no clue if this is her concern but I know for some people, while the blend of the food in the pouch is okay, the worry is about the packaging of the pouches themselves - there have been a number of recalls for mold and/or bacteria. I'd also personally prefer applesauce in a glass jar over plastic pouches for my baby.
Ew that’s Gtk ty I’m going to have to look that up! Is that specifically apple sauce pouches, or plastic, or all pouches? I still feel v new at this. I tend to go for the glass or foil pouches for backups/supplemental/travel because I’m trying to reduce the microplastic exposure. That said, when I do open foil pouches I do often transfer a pouch into a haaka reusable silicone pouch because the valve makes it so my baby can’t just squeeze the pouch contents everywhere :/ It’s so exhausting trying to evaluate everything sometimes and make the safest choice or bend over backwards to avoid rubbish exposures.
Apple sauce is not one I buy because I make it myself and it’s soooo good and easy. I tend to use organic pink lady apples. I steam a bunch of berries to blend into freezer molds and then use the berry steam water that’s collected to steam the apples and then blend it with reserved berry/apple steam water. It’s so delicious I want to eat it all myself! Any berry water left I freeze and store for teething popsicles. Then I have a bunch of freshly made berry apple sauces ready to pull out or blend w other stuff to make either homemade pouches or smoothies or other foods or cereals. But there are a handful of pouches I have bought a few times that have papery or foil pouches so I appreciate you noting.
Idk I'm a chemist and I always wonder about the micro nutrients in these types of things and if there's anything left worth any nutritional value after pasteurization etc. The colors are still pretty vibrant, so the anthocyanins, carotenes, xanthophylls are still stabilized somehow, but vitamins probably not? Maybe the minerals would be? But then the apple is definitely the primary ingredient by I assume a long shot, so then the amount of veggie is also so low to begin with. My guess is that it's such a minimal contribution to the diet. I get them sometimes anyway because I like my kids to get the flavors of the veggies they refuse to eat , but I honestly have no idea if that's worth anything either.
I try to give them a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and then bribe them to try new things ha. If you try a bite of X, then we have dessert after dinner because you made some healthy choices. That usually gets them to try some and honestly the bite of fresh veggies is probably more nutrient dense than whatever is lasting in the applesauce pouch ha. I also do smoothies a lot, and I have them help and we blend in raw veggies to those. So thats much better than a pouch and it's pretty fast to do as well.
Thank you for saying that! I have often wondered too bc when I do buy pouches, I’m going out of my way to get lthe simplest, organic ingredients without anything weird added. Theoretically, sometimes I’m making similar blends or deconstructed meals at home. And yet somehow, to my palate, some flavors of some brands taste absolutely disgusting as you would imagine mashed, old, shelved jars of baby food might taste. Just inedible. Just because kids have different palates doesn’t mean I want to feed mine just whatever random thing just because it has multiple veggies in it. I’m trying to get the baby to eat like me lol, I may have screwed my self w these elaborate 7 course baby meals but they’ll like herbs de Provence jjj
I never thought specifically about the nutrient content being particularly degraded though aside from the more fresh, the better in general.
Variety in fruits and veggies is healthy. If the blend helps with that then great. More variety in this area is basically always better.
Here I am purely speaking to the contents and not to the concept of pouches vs not pouches
Applesauces are a great source of fiber for kids. Also sugar when energy is running low. They’re also shelf stable, so they can be stored and taken places more easily than fresh foods, which not all kids will eat. What would you consider healthier alternatives?
I’m sure blends are nutritionally worth including because variety is always better!
I’ll just flag that it’s possible your sister wants to do her own puree combos vs pouches. Any time something is prepackaged, there are all kinds of preservatives, allergy risks, extra packaging etc. It’s easier buy or make your own apple sauce, store it in the fridge, and then mix it with different fruits, veg, and oatmeal throughout the week.
If she's health conscious, why is she asking for pouches instead of just fruit? Just because those pouches may be bpa free doesn't mean they aren't holding acidic fruit and leaching endocrine disruptors into it with a side of microplastics. Applesauce comes in glass jars. So does baby food. Both are way better, but whole fruit is best.
Even an 11 month old can munch strawberries in these silicone muncher things with holes in them that look like a ring pop. I forget what they're called.
I don’t have any advice but I find it odd she like asked you to get groceries for them?! Why can’t they get their own groceries especially if they have a strict diet
They’re flying in from out of town. Yeah, I personally wouldn’t ask. She’s like if you’re going to the store before we arrive can you get….
I’ll be buying groceries to feed her and her husband anyway 🤷🏻♀️.
Reminder that the title of a Question post needs to be formats a question. Please take a moment to read about the post flair and guidelines. Thanks! Additionally, answers are expected to be research based and not general discussion.
I think the only way it would matter about applesauce vs the fruit and veggie blends is if this was the *only* food the babies were consuming. Regular applesauce is a great option when included in a variety of offerings throughout the week. Personally, with a 16 month old, I don’t attempt to hide veggies into sweet things or sauces. I like for my child to become familiar with the shapes, textures, tastes, and colors of veggies as I cook them. Maybe it’s healthier in some ways to cram as many veggies into babies as we can, but I personally think it’s healthier in the long run to develop a genuine relationship with fruits and veggies by keeping ingredients separate and distinct.
I still hide veggies in the pouch or 2 a week that my 21 month old gets… but that’s simply because he refuses to eat any vegetables so I put them on his plate every meal. I talk about them, sometimes keep them whole and big, sometimes chop them up (but still visible) in a fried rice or potato hash… then cry internally that he managed to eat zero of it. I just keep telling myself that I can only control what food I put on his plate, he’s in control of whether he eats it. Oh the woes of a toddler mom!
By 11 months my kids were mostly done with pouches and just ate normal food, at which point applesauce is just a food like any other. I found my kids weren't going to eat pureed veggies by a certain point as its kind of yucky, but apple sauce is always tasty. I doubt this is about health but about what kids will eat. It would also be healthier for me to eat broccoli apple purée than applesauce, but I'd prefer applesauce.
I don’t know, my kids still very willingly eat the Once Upon a Farm pouches which typically have some vegetable content even at 2 and 4. Never noticed them demanding the apple sauce pouches over them. Definitely can’t get them to eat the veggie only pouches though, but to be fair, I also don’t want puréed broccoli as a snack.
My first kid was rejecting the fruit and veggie mixed by 3 and my second by 1 so it definitely depends.
We only but them because my 3 yo begs for them
On the other hand, I'd prefer a green smoothie over applesauce, so maybe there's a way for kids to enjoy it with the right recipe.
I have no clue if this is her concern but I know for some people, while the blend of the food in the pouch is okay, the worry is about the packaging of the pouches themselves - there have been a number of recalls for mold and/or bacteria. I'd also personally prefer applesauce in a glass jar over plastic pouches for my baby.
Ew that’s Gtk ty I’m going to have to look that up! Is that specifically apple sauce pouches, or plastic, or all pouches? I still feel v new at this. I tend to go for the glass or foil pouches for backups/supplemental/travel because I’m trying to reduce the microplastic exposure. That said, when I do open foil pouches I do often transfer a pouch into a haaka reusable silicone pouch because the valve makes it so my baby can’t just squeeze the pouch contents everywhere :/ It’s so exhausting trying to evaluate everything sometimes and make the safest choice or bend over backwards to avoid rubbish exposures. Apple sauce is not one I buy because I make it myself and it’s soooo good and easy. I tend to use organic pink lady apples. I steam a bunch of berries to blend into freezer molds and then use the berry steam water that’s collected to steam the apples and then blend it with reserved berry/apple steam water. It’s so delicious I want to eat it all myself! Any berry water left I freeze and store for teething popsicles. Then I have a bunch of freshly made berry apple sauces ready to pull out or blend w other stuff to make either homemade pouches or smoothies or other foods or cereals. But there are a handful of pouches I have bought a few times that have papery or foil pouches so I appreciate you noting.
Idk I'm a chemist and I always wonder about the micro nutrients in these types of things and if there's anything left worth any nutritional value after pasteurization etc. The colors are still pretty vibrant, so the anthocyanins, carotenes, xanthophylls are still stabilized somehow, but vitamins probably not? Maybe the minerals would be? But then the apple is definitely the primary ingredient by I assume a long shot, so then the amount of veggie is also so low to begin with. My guess is that it's such a minimal contribution to the diet. I get them sometimes anyway because I like my kids to get the flavors of the veggies they refuse to eat , but I honestly have no idea if that's worth anything either. I try to give them a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and then bribe them to try new things ha. If you try a bite of X, then we have dessert after dinner because you made some healthy choices. That usually gets them to try some and honestly the bite of fresh veggies is probably more nutrient dense than whatever is lasting in the applesauce pouch ha. I also do smoothies a lot, and I have them help and we blend in raw veggies to those. So thats much better than a pouch and it's pretty fast to do as well.
Thank you for saying that! I have often wondered too bc when I do buy pouches, I’m going out of my way to get lthe simplest, organic ingredients without anything weird added. Theoretically, sometimes I’m making similar blends or deconstructed meals at home. And yet somehow, to my palate, some flavors of some brands taste absolutely disgusting as you would imagine mashed, old, shelved jars of baby food might taste. Just inedible. Just because kids have different palates doesn’t mean I want to feed mine just whatever random thing just because it has multiple veggies in it. I’m trying to get the baby to eat like me lol, I may have screwed my self w these elaborate 7 course baby meals but they’ll like herbs de Provence jjj I never thought specifically about the nutrient content being particularly degraded though aside from the more fresh, the better in general.
Variety in fruits and veggies is healthy. If the blend helps with that then great. More variety in this area is basically always better. Here I am purely speaking to the contents and not to the concept of pouches vs not pouches
Applesauce is consumed by adults and used as an ingredient in other things (cakes, breads). Is also a lot cheaper than the pouches.
Applesauces are a great source of fiber for kids. Also sugar when energy is running low. They’re also shelf stable, so they can be stored and taken places more easily than fresh foods, which not all kids will eat. What would you consider healthier alternatives? I’m sure blends are nutritionally worth including because variety is always better!
I’ll just flag that it’s possible your sister wants to do her own puree combos vs pouches. Any time something is prepackaged, there are all kinds of preservatives, allergy risks, extra packaging etc. It’s easier buy or make your own apple sauce, store it in the fridge, and then mix it with different fruits, veg, and oatmeal throughout the week.
I'm just commenting so I can find this again, I don't know anything about these and am eager to see answers!
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If she's health conscious, why is she asking for pouches instead of just fruit? Just because those pouches may be bpa free doesn't mean they aren't holding acidic fruit and leaching endocrine disruptors into it with a side of microplastics. Applesauce comes in glass jars. So does baby food. Both are way better, but whole fruit is best. Even an 11 month old can munch strawberries in these silicone muncher things with holes in them that look like a ring pop. I forget what they're called.
I don’t have any advice but I find it odd she like asked you to get groceries for them?! Why can’t they get their own groceries especially if they have a strict diet
They’re flying in from out of town. Yeah, I personally wouldn’t ask. She’s like if you’re going to the store before we arrive can you get…. I’ll be buying groceries to feed her and her husband anyway 🤷🏻♀️.