January 8, 2015 - Taste test baby food

My feast

Preparing to have a baby has led me down many new paths.  Places where I had never gone before.   It has led me to thinking about things differently, and it has led me to reformulate my priorities.  And it has led me into parts of stores that I usually have no reason to visit.

The same thing happened when I met Elizabeth and got engaged.  I found myself going down exotic aisles labeled "Feminine Care." I started spending more time wandering dead-eyed through women's clothing sections, usually caring the items that Elizabeth had chosen to buy.  The walls of make-up that I had previously skipped became my friends.

After we saw the plus sign on the little pregnancy test, a whole new world opened up to me that had been there all along, and I had never noticed it.  It's like when you take the time to say hello to someone at work that you haven't seen before, and then you start seeing them everywhere.  You probably saw them hundreds of times before, but until you really noticed them, they had just faded into the background.

I started becoming drawn to baby departments.  And crib aisles.  And toy aisles.  And whole new stores that I had driven right by in the past (I have yet to visit Babies 'R' Us, but I'm sure that it will be happening sooner rather than later).

And the baby food section at the grocery store.  I'm not the typical guy in every commercial that becomes a an idiotic zombie when attempting to shop for groceries. I feel that I am an informed shopper, and my trips to the store usually take me down all of the aisles.  But before September of 2014, I pushed my cart right by the shelves filled with Gerber and formula and other assorted baby products. Now, it's part of my weekly routine.

I don't remember my previous experience with baby food (because I was a baby...), so I wanted to change.  Last night, I conducted a taste test.

Mush

First, I started with an Herbed Chicken and Pasta Dinner by Gerber.  It is a "2nd Food," which usually means it is intended for babies older than 6 months.  It was basically a gooey slop with bits of tasteless "pasta" intermixed.  I could have been eating anything, there really wasn't any sort of taste to it.  It tried to be fancy, but it just reminded me of Fancy Feast.  Do cats really appreciate reconstituted meat made to resemble Filet Mignon?  In the end, will a baby really care if their pureed chicken dinner is herbed properly?

Pea paste

I followed this underwhelming first course with a Pea, Brown Rice, White Bean and Kale mixture from Sprout.  Just listing out the ingredients reminds me of Whole Foods.  I feel like naming my child Xander now.  Or Alistair.  Or...Kale.

Another 2nd Food option, I did like the squirt bottle delivery system for this one.  I can see this being easier than a jar to give to Nugget.  However, taste wise, it was more of the same.  This organic offering tasted like dried ground up peas. The texture was extremely weird, almost like a vegetable paste.  Sorry, Nugget, it doesn't look like your foodie genes will be satisfied with this one either...

A winner!

Next, I tried a Mango, Apple, Avocado blend from Beech Nut.  The last 2nd Food I tried was also the best of the bunch.  Of the four things I taste tested, it was the only thing that actually tasted like food. It might have been because I was eating it after two bleck inducing options, but I actually said "I would eat this on my own for dinner and I want to get more of this."  Elizabeth provided the requisite eyebrow raise of incredulity.

More like...Bad Start...ha

I ended my taste test with Gerber's Good Start Gentle.  It's designed to be nutritionally the same as breastmilk (please read that as "I DID NOT DRINK BREASTMILK, I DON'T HAVE A WEIRD FETISH").  It's a supplement/substitute for breastmilk.  We're planning on going the natural route here, but it was good to know what else was out there should the need arise.

It was a very weird taste, because it was the most tasteless thing I've ever drank.  Think watering down water.  I can't imagine Nugget coming back from a long day of baby things and quenching his thirst with a tall, cool glass of Good Start.


Overall, I wasn't impressed by the foods I chose.  Now I know that it's babyfood, who cares?  But with the amount of money I spent on this slop, I was hoping that it would be worth it.  I'm thinking that I could make the same thing for less money and have it actually taste better.  Later on this month, I'll try to do just that.