5 Things You Wish You Didn’t Know About Baby Food Pouches
Traditional Baby food pouches are the big thing in feeding babies these days, but they are not without their problems. Here are five things you need to know about baby food pouches before you run out and get another pack. Now, before you read below, we are the first to understand that sometimes when your baby is crying in the backseat the traditional baby food pouch is an easy fix. But make sure you keep in mind these 5 things about the baby food pouches (although sometimes we wish we didn't).
1. Babies Need to Chew
Parents love pouches because babies can suck the food right out of them. No messy spooning or chewing. But studies show that babies who are pouch-fed can have trouble handling textures and chewing later if they become too used to sucking everything from a pouch.
All those pouches have to go somewhere. Unfortunately, baby food pouches are made from a variety of layered materials that make them hard to recycle. Some recycling services have started for them, but not a lot of pouches end up in the system and the recycling process isn’t very efficient. That means a lot of pouches and caps end up in landfills or even the ocean.
3. Heating
To sterilize the food and the pouch before filling, they have to be heated up and the nutrients, tastes and textures may be sacrificed. Heating the food can alter the nutrition, but heating the pouch could release chemicals into the food! Heating may be necessary for sterilization, but unlike glass jars, you don’t know that the inner lining won’t break down a bit.
4. Ingredients
You should always look at the label of a baby food pouch before giving it to your child. Even if a pouch says it has healthy things like kale, you don’t know how much kale is actually in there. Your pouch may be mostly apple or pear puree instead. While it’s not artificial, it’s not the healthy veggie amounts you’re looking for! Make sure you check the ingredients in every pouch, the ingredients will be listed on the back by the quantity used, if the first ingredient is apple, just make sure you treat the pouch as an apple pouch, instead of the savory vegetable pouch it may appear to be.
5. Motor Skills
Parents may love pouches because of the lack of mess, but remember that a messy baby is part of the learning process for babies as they start to learn how to handle food and start solids. Babies can have trouble learning how to handle spoons and finger foods if they’re handed a pouch every time they are hungry.
So, while we know that sometimes they are practical when your baby is screaming in the back seat, make sure you keep those 5 things in mind when feeding your baby pouches.
Now, we all know that it’s impossible to dress your baby in a perfect white onesy all the time, that’s why we decided to give moms the better baby food alternative. At Amara Organic Foods, we know that you don’t always have the time to make homemade. So we carefully pick every ingredient and then use a proprietary technique that locks in the nutrients, tastes and textures of the fruits and vegetables. We take out the water so we don't have to use the high processing of the traditional jars and pouches but we can still lock in the taste, texture and nutrients of the fruits and vegetables.
Try out our introduction to solids that includes both fruits, vegetables and root vegetables to kick start your baby’s first step to solid foods. This helps your baby recognize the taste, smell and texture of the real fruits and vegetables so that when they are growing they easily transition to healthy whole meals.
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