Baby Food Pouches Continued

A friend of mine mentioned to me this week, that Ella's Kitchen was known for their genuine concern for and interest in the insights of their customers. I put this to the test by asking about their recipes, packaging, and how they make sure their food is bacteria and maggot free (cough cough Plum Organics and Earth's Best cough cough). And they sure did deliver and helped to put my mind at ease.

For the record, Ella's Kitchen still has our family's trust. This was the response I received from Antoinette Jones on behalf of Ella's Kitchen about my concerns. I had asked about why they put fruit in all of their recipes, and not simply plain veggies:

"In putting together our recipes we wanted to maximize the nutrition, taste and texture of the products and make them as close to home made foods as possible (or as far away from jarred foods as possible). We do this by ‘flash pasteurizing’ the food rather than ‘sterilizing’ which occurs in jars. Jarred foods (and foods in pots) will be taken to much higher temperatures for much much longer. We can do this by making the foods too acidic for ‘bugs’ to grow but not too acidic for babies tummies. We could do this naturally, using fruits (which contain natural acids to keep the acidity low) or not naturally by using additives and preservatives – which was exactly what we didn’t want to do. We therefore use fruit for this reason, and spent much time balancing fruits and veg to get a tasty, safe, balanced and nutritious product – with the fruit and vegetable mixes. Fruits and vegetables are of course both nutritious for babies. We worked closely with child and baby nutritionists and a pediatrician to develop our recipes."

Well colour me impressed. The company emailed me back within hours of my query. I'm relieved to have found a baby food company that I can still stand by. Noah has shown me time and time again that he just isn't ready for the texture of big people food. Apparently he takes after his dada.

Yay for not being forced to buy a deep freezer!

Happy Thursday, folks! Love, Charlie Brown