I like buying the individual pouches of baby food and applesauce for my kids, because they are incredibly convenient, and best of all, not messy. It's something I can hand to my littlest, and not have to worry about the mess he'll make while I take care of the big kids (or even eat my own lunch!). There are two problems with these pouches, though; they are expensive, and they are terrible for the environment. To give you a cost comparison, the Plum Organics brand Morning Mash-Ups that I like to buy cost $1 to $1.25 per pouch; over the course of a month, this can add up to as much as $37.50. Granted, that's not a lot, but considering that's only feeding my baby one pouch of bananas and oatmeal a day, two very cheap foods, the markup is significant.
With this in mind, I went looking for alternatives; looking on Amazon, there were many options for reusable baby pouches. The majority of them have great reviews, though the poor reviews are telling; the options that zip closed on the bottom tend to leak, the ones that zip closed on the top can be difficult for some babies to eat out of. Top and bottom opening ones both were reviewed as difficult to fill. After doing a few hours of research, I picked the
EZ Squeezees Refillable Food Pouches because of the side-opening feature, as well as the gusset side allowing it to hold more; these were also some of the larger pouches, holding over 6 ounces, and only cost about $10 for 3 pouches, much less than the $4-5 that other brands cost.
Overall, I have been very pleased with these; the size allows for a full meal for my baby, and the zipper stays closed, and they are easily washable. Filling them is still somewhat of a challenge (I shudder to think how hard it'd be with a bottom loading pouch), but I discovered a great trick for that: Use a canning funnel! As you can see, a canning funnel fits perfectly in the opening on the pouch, making it much easier to fill. If you don't have a canning funnel, look online or at your local grocery store.
Recipe: Banana Oatmeal Yogurt Baby Food
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup oats (rolled or instant)
- 1 cup water
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1/3 cup yogurt of choice (I prefer a full fat Greek-style yogurt)
- Pinch of salt
- Sugar or maple syrup (to taste)
Boil water in a saucepan, and stir the oatmeal, banana and salt. Stir constantly until the oats are cooked, then remove from heat and let cool. Once cooled, stir in yogurt and sweetener (if desired). Makes approximately three 6-ounce servings. Enjoy!
(Please note that this is an older article, originally posted via Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo recently shut down Voices! and removed the content, so I am reposting my old articles onto this blog).
