PrintCooking 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
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3 Comments:
This absolutely cracks me up! I'm a food writer too, and for my baby shower, my friends did a 'taste test' of organic baby foods (I forbade them to do any games, so they slid it in under the 'taste test' guise). The most anyone guessed correctly was 2 out of 5, and my mom called a few days later to apologize for ever feeding me baby food!
Cheers,
Lia
www.swirlingnotions.com
swirlingnotions at 8:20PM on 08/27/07
Me and my fiance have decided to make our own baby food much like it was done in times past. After breastfeeding we will move on to foods which we will learn about prior, puree them and feed them. So carrots will taste like carrots and so forth. None of that industrial baby food, and if my baby really needed gourmet then either they are a genius (with an exceptional palate) or the parents are crazy.
I try to buy all of my groceries such as vegetables, fruits, etc locally to get them as fresh as possible.
jdcrow at 3:08PM on 08/30/07
World Baby Foods advocates the idea that parents can make the best and most fresh and flavorful foods for their babies. We view pre-made foods such as our as a convenience, to be used when the busy parent lacks time to prepare wholesome foods themselves.
A few other points I'd like to clarify. We work with the Northwest Agricultural Business Center (www.agbizcenter.org) - developing local value added businesses (such as World Baby Foods) to help support local farmers. While we do send our products by mail, the vast majority of our sales is in the regions in and around Seattle. Regarding the $4 price you quoted, I'd like to learn where you bought that. We retail for considerably less than that at Whole Foods, Top Foods, down to $2 at Thriftways. Still, it's pricier, but you get what you pay for. We've been conditioned to expect cheap baby food, but that's a consequence of commoditization, which serves the needs of business more than babies. Finally, our key message at Dr. Susanna's World Baby Foods is that: You can and should TEACH your child how to eat, and multicultural cuisine is an excellent way to challenge tast development, encouraging healthier dietary patterns later in life. Research shows that children will develop affinities for flavors when offered them repeatedly. This is counter to the "bland is best" theme that has ruled baby food, even organic varieties. The current pediatric obesity crisis relates to the poor dietary patterns acquired by children. Many taste preferences originate by age two - hence our concept of richly flavored multicultural baby food - which happens to be organic as well.
Thanks again for covering our product. We welcome the chance to engage the community with our ideas. More information can be found at www.worldbabyfoods.com.
Jonathan Scheffer MD, CEO
Dr. Susanna's World Baby Foods
Nutrition for the Body, Development for the Mind, and Community for the World
DrSusanna at 4:01AM on 10/26/07