Ousted by Gerber!
As you all know Cortney and I went on vacation a week or so back. I wasn’t about to cart a cooler full of vegetable and fruit ice cubes with me to Florida, so we opted for jarred food while on vacation. Meijer had a great sale before we left and kept spitting me out great coupons so I stocked up a bit to save a little money. I mostly bought Gerber.
I don’t know if I have mentioned it before but my son DOES NOT eat vegetables well. The first time through solid foods he loved them all. The second time through, each of the vegetables, he decided he didn’t like carrots. Fast forward about a week and he decided he liked carrots but hated peas. He didn’t take to kindly to green beans for that matter either. I had taken to adding fruit to his vegetable cubes (a bonus of making your own food because you can mix and match) at each meal to keep my sanity.
Then came vacation. I broke out the first set of Gerber jarred veggies and he went wild. He started in with his, “mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmm”. Proceeded by wild shaking and opening of his mouth in anticipation of more. Sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, green beans, peas, you name it, he LOVED it! WHAT! I kept reading the label to see if they put something else in it (like crack sugar) but didn’t find anything. So I was excited he was eating his veggies but I was a little concerned about this new turn of events.
When we came home we had a little discussion about the price of jarred food and how we had some nummy homemade veggies awaiting us in the freezer. The first attempt post vacation – HUGE FAIL for mommy. I think my husband found me in tears at the kitchen table as I pleaded with my son to PLEASE eat mommy’s homemade peas. After all, she has this great website and it is so much cheaper and well, you just don’t snub mommy’s cooking! But no dice.
So I have given in to Gerber. . .at least in the vegetable department. I figure it isn’t worth fighting over, he’s eating vegetables after all. I still am making homemade fruit and we are starting into finger foods now so I don’t think we will be doing the pureed foods much longer anyway. Rest assurd I gave him a firm lecture on the price of baby food and the need for appreciation while we were at the grocery store this week. I suppose my baby just has expensive taste.
So Gerber, if you are reading this, feel free to send me a case of your finest vegetables. I am SURE we will eat them (*growl*)!
That is SO strange! I can’t believe that ANYONE would prefer that crap in a jar over the homemade stuff. It looks and smells SO nasty! Any idea why he likes it better?
I feel your pain!
I made my own food with my first child but stuck with the bare minimum (bananas, avocado, sweet potato) because they were things we had on hand.
She happily ate them…until suddenly she wouldn’t touch them.
No changes in how I made them, she just turned up her nose at them.
having a ton of coupons & finding them on sale, I tried Gerber.
She ate them up like nobody’s business.
What the heck are they doing differently?? lol
I’m so glad you posted this. My daughter won’t eat homemade veggies, either! But she loves jarred food, and yes, I looked to see if they added sugar, too! I love your site-
I am a new follower of your OAMM. Overall I think it is AWESOME what you are doing. We made the Burritos last month and my husband asks for them every week. I am starting slow, and do what I can, but have found great success so far and will continue to make the effort to keep this up! Thanks for the great site!
Onto the topic at hand…it is so interesting that your little one chose the Gerber foods over your home made! I use Earth’s Best jarred foods(working FT makes it difficult to make all of the baby food homemade-again, I do what I can) and love it. Both out of curiosity and to make sure my kid is getting the actual thing, my husband and I taste the EB jarred food. She has had no problem switching back and forth either, thankfully! She’s almost one, and the finger foods are getting more and more predominant(yay), but she still wants those purees at times. I just add steamed mixed veggies or cut up/small whole wheat pasta and she eats it right up!
Great site, thanks again!
I think it’s awesome when people make baby food. But I couldn’t work up the energy for that. (I realize it’s not difficult – to be honest, I was maybe a little bit lazy about it!) But my daughter ate Gerber and the other brand that Walmart carries (can’t think of it right now) really well.
My son doesn’t eat my homemade veggies very well either. I think I can’t get the consistancy right for him, but he also loves Gerber veggies! What is up with that??
And unfortunately your son has been talking (and influencing) my son which will no longer eat most of his homemade veggies either – THANKS Isaac for warping my son’s decisions. I haven’t given in yet!
My son seems to prefer jarred as well but I haven’t given in. My theory on this is the vegetable taste is more mild for the jarred food because they are over cooked and processed (likely removing a lot of the nutrients). WE think that jarred tastes awful because we LIKE vegetables but our little ones probably prefer a more bland taste.
You gave your son a lecture about pricing and he is how old?
9 months. It is never too young to start lecturing, right? Just kidding – it was all in jest.
If you’re open to jarred baby foods I always find great deals on Beechnut baby food. I can print coupons from their website and they snail mailed me over 60 coupons when I sent them a compliment email.
Ack! I wonder if you can get away with mixing some of your homemade food with the Gerber, and then gradually increasing the ratio of your food. Or maybe you can try to alter your recipe so yours tastes/feels more like Gerber?
My baby is not quite 5 months old yet so we haven’t dealt with solids. Soon, though!
I have tried replicating Gerber to no avail. They have some secret!
This is so suprising to me! We recently took out 8 month old on a trip and chose beechnut baby food to take along and we had the exact opposite. He wouldn’t take a bite! Not even of the fruits, on trips since then he has continued to turn down the baby food not made by his momma! If only there was a happy medium, but you are right as long as they are eating but how funny! Thanks for all you do to provide other options for us Moms and babies.
Have you tried mixing your veggies w/ gerber?
No, haven’t gotten that innovative yet.
You can always mix the pureed veggies into his solid foods so he’ll get extra.
We did all homemade veggies except for canned pumpkin. If you get the large can of JUST pumpkin (with no pumpkin pie spices in it) it is 100% pumpkin pureed. My girls thought it was french silk pie the way they gobbled it up. It was their absolute favorite. I tried not to hate the Libby’s company for being better than the food I slaved over.
ps. I froze the pumpkin in mini-icecube portions because it’s way too much for one or two servings. When they started teething, a supervised comping on a pumpkin icecube in their high chair always did the trick.
My daughter is the same way. I can’t figure out what they do differently but she’ll eat the Gerber stuff. I found that Sam’s club has a decent price on Gerber 2nd foods if you can’t find any sales/coupons.
Mine did exactly the same thing. The only homemade “veggie” puree they would eat was avacados mixed with applesauce. That’s it.
You might save some money if you go with Beech Nut instead of Gerber. My girls never really noticed a difference between the two and BN is a bit cheaper (if you don’t have coupons).
My daughter ate all of my homemade things no problem AS LONG AS she fed herself. YES from the first feeding of baby food she had to feed herself….boy was that messy and I’m glad it’s over. I found if I ground Cheerios in the food proccessor and mixed it with the food she could pick up better. She still refuses to let me help her eat. AY ya yai ; )
after reading your site..i am all for making homemade baby food. my daughter is 2 and half, and she ONLY eats pureed veggies. we offer her non-pureed veggies and she doesnt even look at them. so because i dont want her to go without, i give her baby veggies. she loves them. squash is her favorite. i buy all kinds of them like, gerber, beech-nut, and some organic kind (cant rememeber the name) i am not really sure what i am going to do when she is older…but i am going to try to make some and see if she likes them.
hmph, perhaps when we get back to the States (next week!!!! Babyfood in the UK does not come in simple, single ingredient versions. So the only vegetables he’s had come in blends with applesauce & other fruits & sometimes other vegetables too. They are tasty & organic, but still. no plain veg. which is weird to me, my frist two were raised on U.S. style baby foods & I think it’s important to for them to appreciate the flavors individually.
I tried to get around the blends issue by making my own, but after several rounds of all that work for rejections, I quit.
So funny, we had a different reaction with our son. We were out running errands after church and time got away from us. I had hubby stop at the grocery store to get some baby food to feed our son. He took one bite and promptly spit it all out. I tried for 20 minutes to get him to eat just one bite of sweet potatoes- nada! I took a bite and was surprised to find how bitter it was. We got home- I thawed out some cubes of my sweet potatoes and low and behold, he ate them right up.
My daughter was the same way. I started her on Gerber, then tried making some of my own. She would sometimes eat the sweet potatoes, carrot and squash, but I couldn’t get her to eat any peas or green beans (and those were the only ones I tried). I could tell that the consistency wasn’t that good. Now I have a 3m-old, and I’m going to try making my own from the beginning.
I will say though, that my firstborn (now 2) LOVES veggies. Broccoli is her favorite, but she will eat them all!
I wanted to second what Risha said. I really didn’t have success with my own baby food so I quit trying and stuck with jarred. I now have a six year old who loves most veggies and even has his own garden so he can grow his own. The baby food stage is actually so brief I really don’t think it’s worth stressing out about.
My son was a gerber baby too. I tried making my own, but he refused it. I think its the consistency. I tried several times but with fail. Since he was struggling with a weight issue, I followed the direction of my pediatrician and tried Gerber. The little Booger ate it all up! He ate so well in the baby food stage, he almost got a little fat role! (almost) Peas, squash, sweet potatoes and carrots were his favorite. But, he really didn’t care for the fruits Gerber offered. Luckily, he ate my homemade fruits. Good luck. It can be frustrating, I know. But even at an early age lil ones know what they like!
We have the exact same response from our Carter! He loves the green beans and peas in a jar, but not his mommas! So, we have to disguise my peas with sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and carrots oftentimes. I just think they have awesome pureeing techniques and equipment that we don’t have!
UK babyfood was the only kind my son ever touched, and the gerber stuff is just nasty. At least the UK stuff was edible, smelled and tasted like food, and was easy to find in organic for the same price as non-organic.
Maybe you could try putting your homemade baby food into the Gerber jars?
Unfortunately, I am sure that wouldn’t help.
Some babies prefer the texture of jar foods. If you are happy with using an “additive” of sorts, a teaspoon of cornflour (americans call it cornstarch I think?) when blending will give the same consistency and for some reason often does the trick for the children I work with in our caring centre. You can purchase organic cornflour if you prefer.
All three of my kiddos did the same thing- I ended up saving baby food jars, sterilizing them and feeding my homemade food to the babies out of the jars instead of a bowl. Strangely- it worked.
Interesting!!!! And quite creatively deceptive. I like it!
My son did the same thing with peas. Mine were so delicious and the jar was nasty… well he LOVED gerber peas. ? strange.
I used the jarred stuff with my first two sons, and then, out of desperation, I tried making my own. It was mainly the money. I couldn’t justify spending 3 – 4 times as much on store bought things I could easily make myself with a minimal effort. I also assumed I would be able to get him to eat more fruits and veggies after the baby food stage was done, figuring I would just make the purees lumpier and lumpier until they weren’t purees anymore but finger foods. It didn’t work. Ransom went along happily with most of the veggies (except green beans) as long as they were purees. As soon as they became too lumpy, he just stopped, cold turkey, and refused to eat any more of them. Just wrong.
Both of my boys liked Gerber’s peas and carrots better, but they still eat both. I started disguising mine with fruit, but I’m beginning to think that could hinder him from liking peas and carrots later?
Try adding more water to your purees and then try pureeing them a bit more. The jarred foods have a LOT more water in them than you think. I made my own baby foods and eventually I figured out that I really needed to add a LOT more water than I really thought. It helped a ton with consistency, too – most of the foods puree so much easier. Just think, the baby food companies have been at this a lot longer than us and they have “perfected” the flavors and consistencies that “most” babies prefer. My dd ate much better when I started doing this
My son did the same thing, I made him all homemade food and he went off the stuff. He liked the Earth’s Best jar food over the homemade. I even put it in the jar to pretend like it was theirs, didn’t work.
I had a similar experience with my son. I was so frustrated, but I stuck with it. It got easier when he started having “meals” as opposed to just the veggie or fruit. He’s 11 months so I puree what we’re having for dinner and then give it to him as a finger food after he’s had the puree.
maybe you could mix the 2 and ween him back onto the real thing. My son loved gerber veggies, and now won’t touch a vegetable hidden under meat or covered in mashed potato’s to save his life.