I make a hell of a lot of my kid's food from scratch. I like to know she's not eating a bunch of unnecessary preservatives and especially added sugar. Why create a sweet tooth if I can help it? Plus... I like cooking. Duh.
That being said, I always have a sachet of baby food in with her day care lunch as an optional extra. It doesn't have to be refrigerated and is very portable. I throw them in my handbag, send along with her on trips with her dad and grandma, and woe betide me if we're shopping at the supermarket and we pass the row of sachets without giving her one on the spot... she loves them.
The lovely folk at Ella's Kitchen recently contacted me and asked if I'd tried their products. And while I'm no stranger to baby food sachets, we really hadn't tried their brand before. To be honest, I was a little wigged about it being imported, as I have been trying to buy things with less food miles when I can. However, I liked their created-by-a-dad thing, I liked their 100% organic thing, I liked their suitable-for-vegetarians thing. No added salt, sugar or water, no additives, thickeners, artificial nasties... apparently just fruit. or veg. or fruit and veg.
I handed one to Abby to try. She ripped it out of my hand and started sucking for dear life.
Her eyes started to water and go red and we laughed at her and told her to breathe!
She ignored us and kept at it. The pack was gone in about three and a half seconds.
She handed the empty sachet back to me, panting and looking around for more. I'm gonna say that's a success.
Have you tried their products? Well... your kids, anyway. I've only tried it when it's accidentally spilled on my hands in Abby's excitement to get it to her mouth and half-squeezes it on the way. Tastes good to me! Anyway, do you want to? Ella's Kitchen are giving away three prize packs here on Veggie Mama, consisting of:
♥ 8 smoothies
♥ 2 baby brekkie
(look, basically it's their whole range except the chicken and fish ones)
♥ AND the coolest thing ever... a lunchbox made from upcycled Ella's Kitchen packets!
The range is now available in Coles, but all you have to do to enter is tell me a funny story about your kid eating. We will choose three winners on the basis of who makes us laugh the most, and ship your goods off asap - so you HAVE to have an email or way of contacting you in the comment.
Total prize pool is valued at $152.52 and the giveaway closes on Tuesday, June 12 at 5pm. Winners will be notified via email. Only open to Australian residents, sorry :(
For more information on the Ella's Kitchen story, how much they love researching foods kids love to eat and their efforts to establish lifelong good eating habits, go here.
They are on facebook here
And my favourite, twitter, here.
Disclaimer: I was posted an Ella's Kitchen smoothie for Abby to try. It was The Red One and as you can see, she liked it. I charged my usual administration fee for running the giveaway. Abby couldn't care less about my admin fee so she wasn't influenced, and if you think it influences my opinion, you are a twit. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask: mamavegetable (at) gmail.com, I'm more than happy to help.
Total prize pool is valued at $152.52 and the giveaway closes on Tuesday, June 12 at 5pm. Winners will be notified via email. Only open to Australian residents, sorry :(
For more information on the Ella's Kitchen story, how much they love researching foods kids love to eat and their efforts to establish lifelong good eating habits, go here.
They are on facebook here
And my favourite, twitter, here.
Disclaimer: I was posted an Ella's Kitchen smoothie for Abby to try. It was The Red One and as you can see, she liked it. I charged my usual administration fee for running the giveaway. Abby couldn't care less about my admin fee so she wasn't influenced, and if you think it influences my opinion, you are a twit. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask: mamavegetable (at) gmail.com, I'm more than happy to help.
My son LOVES these pouches - so much so that instead of Chocolate this year my family bought him the smoothie pouches. He was so excited that he tipped the bag out over the floor and started trying to suck down a "green one" with the lid still attached. He can finish a pouch in about 30 seconds - not bad for a 10 month old.
ReplyDeletemy daughter who is almost three adores them starts jumping up and down when she seea them at the shop saying mine mine mine as in i want them all now!! and my 6 mos cant eat them fast enough mind you maybe its because his sister is hovering around anxiously waiting for the leftovers if there is any silly kids, love em to bits..... cheers e email etribe@hotmail.com.au
ReplyDeleteI was all "no package food for my girl, no way"!! And then she refused to eat a variety of veggies. Yay. So pleasing for her vegetarian mummy! So to the packages we went to make sure she was getting some different nutrients. Well it worked a treat and whenever we're in the baby aisle she goes "yum yum" while pointing at them. She has to hold them until we get to the checkout and it's a battle to be able to scan them haha. Last week they got us through her first flights, I took three packages for each direction. Lovely :o)
ReplyDeleteI have never tried these pouches as i make all of my babies food, but im on the look out as of today. I have never seen them, im sure its only cause ive never looked.
ReplyDeleteMy little G loves yoghurt so much, that the other day she got so impatient for me to scoop some out, that she drove her whole fist right into the tub, of coarse laughing! Silly me for leaving it too close and turning my back to get a spoon. Who needs a spoon mummy when i have a hand lol??
This is not a competition entry, just stopping by to say that your kid is cool and I love that your disclaimer contains the word twit <3
ReplyDeleteI wish this stuff had been around when my kids were little. I'd have traded my blender and ice cube trays full of mush for this sort of convenience, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteCool prize. Your daughter is stunning...those eyes!!! My story is about my daughter who is now nearly 3. When she was about 10 months we were walking about the fruit and veg shop and I kept getting smiles from people, I thought that's nice but didn't think much of it. My daughter was on my back in our ergocarrier and when I got her down to put her in the car she had a half eaten apple in her hand, her first shoplifting experience(hopefully last). I went straight back in and explained and the shopkeeper just laughed and refused payment. So sweet of them. Very embarrassing for me!
ReplyDeleteMy nephew was eating some cake a couple of months back and dropped it. His 7 month old sister turn her head, spotted it, and it was the FASTEST crawling you've ever seen. Gone in seconds.
ReplyDeleteDoes breastfeeding count as eating??? New mum to Rosie (3 month old). Eating dinner out (might add the first dinner out) and Rosie decides she would like some dinner too (fancy shmancy place in Sorrento). Nervous first time mum quietly and indiscreetly latches sweet innocent baby onto left breast (feeling good, getting better at this latching thing). Sweet innocent baby begins to suck, not coming quick enough, sweet innocent baby sucks harder and harder whilst doing a gumby neck and pulling the entire boob toward the table. Once said boob is nearly touching the spaghetti marinara, sweet innocent baby releases boob to which it slaps (yes that is right slaps) back towards body. All the while grunting, snorting and squealing like a (sweet and innocent) piglet. So please, now that Rosie is 4 months old and can legally start solids can I grab me some handy little Ella's sachets? I think my sweet and innocent baby (piglet) would appreciate wolfing down one of those bad boys in 30 seconds...
ReplyDeleteLast year, I took my daughter Hannah to the U.S. to meet my parents for the first time. She was 17 months old at the time. She didn't like any of the food on the plane, so on the way home, I packed some porridge, easy mac, cereal, all things I knew that she liked. But just in case, I bought these funny UHT chocolate milk for kids packets that had added vitamins and protein. They were made for fussy eaters to ensure they got all of the nutrients they'd normally miss out on. Hannah LOVES milk, so I figured they'd be perfect. And they were. She didn't want to eat any of the food, but she knocked back that milk like it was going out of fashion. Then the turbulence started. Everyone was asleep, but I had to take Hannah out of the bassinet (yeah, she still fit at 17 months, she's short like me), waking her up. She started coughing. And then...BBBBBBBLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAA!!!! She spewed all over me. Disgustingly smelly, partially digested, chocolate vitamin milk. Ick. But there was turbulence, I wasn't allowed to get up. I had to just take off my jumper, ball it up, and shove it under my seat. The turbulence started waking people up. They'd sniff the air and look at each other in dismay. "WHAT IS THAT SMELL!!???" I heard numerous people ask. No one knew it was me. And I never told them otherwise. Note to self: don't give kids too much milk on long flights....
ReplyDeleteP.S. My son is 9 months old, and he LOVES Ella's fish pie.
Err... my only funny story is this time when Lior wouldn't eat food... cause, well, he doesn't actually eat food yet.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it goes a little something like this: He is NOT a good pooper, and to encourage this intestines to move things along I drained some figs in hot water and put the juice in a bottle (once it was cool).
Well, I lay him down like I would normally boob-feed him (I have no idea how to feed a baby a bottle...), and he starts to suck on my nipple THROUGH MY SHIRT. "No, no" I say. "We're doing something different today Lior!" He looks at me, and put the bottle into his mouth.
He chews it a bit, he has a very worried look on his face, he tries to spit it out, her turns to my boob. In the end I push it in a little further, and he realises he can suck on it. So he does. And then he screws up his face and lets out an almighty howl and cries until I take it out, let him have a breather, and try again. We tried it three times, and when I finally gave up and looked at the bottle to see how much he'd drank I saw that it was exactly the same amount we'd started with! He must had like a DROP on his tongue each time. *sigh*.
And my email is talia (@) carbis.com.au
This article is great. For food info I always go to.http://hjcatering.com
ReplyDeleteDude, if I had as many children as you, I'd have cut every corner known to man. And then some. You rock xx
ReplyDeleteHa I wonder if it will stand up in court?
ReplyDeleteOk. I'm kind of tempted to try these now you've given then such s good wrap and I know you clap for all things healthy. So my funny story involves blueberry porridge which is my now 1yr old's favourite food UN the while world. Her face lights up when I get out the damn saucepan! So my little bub sucks it down when I feed it to her. She has oats in her cheek, her neck, she lovingly licks then off her thumb. Then after brekky one day she was alarmingly quiet while'playing'with her duplo. I found her investigatingher tummy crease, her chubby little knees and then trying to get to one of her little creases under her arm. I found oats in EVERY crease of her body. She did not want to miss ANY of those oats! Thx for ur honesty and the chance to win.
ReplyDeleteWhen our mr3 started solids he loved carrot so much we gave it to him a little too much and his nose started to go an orange colour!
ReplyDeleteMy one-year-old is so obsessed with food that his 'comforter' is not a dummy, or a blanky, or even a toy car or robot. No no...its a biscuit. Or a cracker. Or an apple slice. He eats so well at meal-times, then at play times (and bath times, and story times, and travel times) insists on carrying around a piece of food- not to eat, just to hold for comfort...incase of a food-shortage crisis or emergency hunger pains perhaps? He just holds it in his little pudgy hand, and still manages to crawl and play without dropping so much as a crumb! Trying to take it off him for bedtime is cause for tantrum- however- lately I've been finding 'food friends' in his cot after sleep times! I beleive he has worked out how hide his comforter in places I do not care to think about! The little man has to have surgery to repair a hernia this Monday. I'm not looking forward to having to 'fast' him before hand- hopefully we will find something to comfort him other than food! Looking forward to spoiling him with anything he wants to eat afterwards though!
ReplyDelete(caitlinjeffrey@hotmail.com)
My 3 yr old son was a very hungry boy when he started solids - I'd be spooning the solids into his gob as fast as he could swallow and be calling to my hubby in the kitchen "He's almost done here, get some more ready!" or he would scream until he was given more food. He could sometimes have 3rd's and 4th servings, don't know why I never learnt to just serve a heap more first time... a hint for mama's: freeze those little squeezy packets of smoothie/fruity flavours, so good for keeping littlies entertained on long car trips :)
ReplyDeleteGoing to give these a try. My six month old son, Jarvis, will not eat any solids. Everything we have tried so far he screws he face up and spits out. Literally, I have had an assortment of vegs in my face, nothing like a DIY facial of mashed peas. So far the only thing in his diet is breast milk and farex.
ReplyDeleteWhen my eldest turned one, I started giving him a healthy Banana loaf. (Sugar-free, butter-free).
ReplyDeleteI offered it to him.
He looked at it.,
He tasted it.
He threw it on the floor.
He stood on it.
He wasn't talking yet, but I certainly knew what he thought of it!
Mummy knew best and kept offering it to him, and it became one of his favourites.
I wonder if his little brother will have the same reaction!
On a side note, that lunchbox IS the coolest thing ever, and I think it would feel extra special if it were carried around beside my handbag made from juiceboxes. They'd be friends.
Can email via contact @ happyhousewifey.com :)
This comment is great.
ReplyDeleteI like your post. It is good to see you verbalize from the heart and clarity on this important subject can be easily observed... baby & kids shop
ReplyDelete