Serious Eats
Cooking with Kids: Organic Baby Food
Recently, I bought some baby food. This was unusual for me, since my daughter, Iris, is three. "Is this for your baby?" the cashier asked, ringing up a couple of jars of Dr. Susanna's World Baby Foods.
"Uh, I'm going to try it myself."
Food writer, I explained, while the clerk looked around for the Security button.
Dr. Susanna's is based in Seattle, and its shtick is international foods. There are currently six flavors. I tried Tokyo Tum Tum and Lullaby Thai; also available are Sweetie Tahiti, Baby Dal, and so on. They're organic and, according to the website, "favor local farmers," which makes no sense, since the products are sold nationwide. I guess the farmers could be local to the United States.
The Lullaby Thai tasted like bananas with cardamom, which it is. Not bad. The Tokyo Tum Tum was a bad collision of flavors: sweet apple juice, bok choy, and edamame. Each 4-ounce container is $4.
Also in Seattle, we have Full Tank Foods, endorsed by celebrity chef Tom Douglas. They have a fancy baby food line (including Pear Quinoa, Black Bean Banana, Peach Lentil) and the Secret Agent series. The secret is their patent-pending process for engineering vegetables into macaroni.
"Even though we fed our son a wide variety of fresh vegetables as an infant, he decided at age 2 that he would not eat any more vegetables," the Full Tankers write. I hear you, buddy. My kid did the same thing.
I haven't tried Full Tank, although (full disclosure) they sent me a T-shirt. Their graphic design is pretty cool.
These are clever products, but gourmet baby food strikes me as just another way to separate worried parents from their money. We never bought or made baby food. From the time Iris was eight months old, we just chopped up a little of what we were eating. If we were sending her off to the babysitter with lunch, it would be leftovers from dinner (enchiladas were an early favorite), or some canned black beans and sweet potatoes, which cost tons less than the baby food versions and are equally nutritious.
What really got me worked up was a photo on the Dr. Susanna's website of a baby eating Lullaby Thai in Thailand. Confidential to this kid's parents: You know they have food in Thailand, right?
About the author: Matthew Amster-Burton lives in Seattle. His work appears frequently in the Seattle Times and Seattle magazine. He also maintains the blog Roots and Grubs. His favorite food is pad Thai.
Photograph from iStockPhoto.com