Strollerderby : gerber

Round 1: Baby Food Taste-Off

Madeline Holler — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:02:00 GMT

I dry-heaved my way through this short video over on Chow. One thing even more disgusting than meat-laden baby foods is an adult snacking on them, which is what Chow columnist James Norton did.

Better him than me.

Norton taste-tested jars of butternut squash from three different baby food makers -- Roundy's, Gerber and Nature's Best. Not so bad. Then he popped the lids of turkey dinners of the same labels. I could smell the freshly opened jars from my laptop.

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding baby food disgusting. And, yes, I feed them to my babies (like they're gonna complain). So thanks to Norton, I know to avoid Roundy's grainy, meat-chunkless (there goes another dry heave!) turkey dinner and also to pass up the "sausage in a jar" flavor of Gerber's for the fruity and nicely textured Nature's Best. Nature's Best also had the best squash.

Had Norton really had some sack, he would have sampled other baby food nasties (which, yes, again!, have found their way into my kids' mouths): green beans, those orangy "dinners" involving beef and plain, pureed and jarred poultry -- pink as an undercooked chicken breast.

Which jarred edibles do your kids gobble up while you gag? Have you ever sampled baby food bananas? Doesn't taste a thing like bananas, but man is it good!

Photo: Chow.com

BPA-Free? Not So Much

Amy Kuras — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:54:00 GMT

We're all worried these days about bisphenol-A (or BPA), a chemcial that leaches from hard, clear plastic polycarbonate baby bottles and can cause disruptions ot the endocrine system
So what a fabulous idea from Amazon to open their BPA-Free Baby Store, gathering a selection of their products that don't use the chemical and putting them all in one place on the site.
Only one problem: Some of the products do contain BPA.
According to Z Recommends, which uncovered the problem, only four of 14 products lumped in the BPA-Free Store contained BPA, and of those, two had it in the handles or a flip-top that covered a sippy spout –in other words, areas that were unlikely to leach (BPA leaches when the plastic containing it is heated, which is why bottles are such a concern).
Two of the others, though, were bottles: Gerber's ComfortHold bottle and Dr. Brown's standard bottle. In the case of the Dr. Brown's bottle, it may have been a mix-up –the company recently introduced a glass bottle and announced plans to release a BPA-free plastic one, but clicking on the product ID number went right to their polycarbonate models.
None of the manufacturers are claiming their products are BPA-free – Amazon, however, did. A quick check of Amazon before I posted this found the offending products gone from the BPA-Free Shop, nore did they come up in a search for "BPA-Free."

Z Recommends has a very detailed report on the issue on their site, so follow the link. Their main concern, and mine, is that people could be misled into buying bottles that have BPA in them. Being a smart consumer saves the day.

Things Fall Apart: Gerber's Clumping Choking Organic Baby Cereal

Karen Murphy — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:03:00 GMT

Feed your baby organic rice or oatmeal cereal? Sure you do. Organic = good, right? And that baby cereal, it's pretty handy, it just mixes with your chosen liquid and poof! cereal for your baby.

Except when it has lumps that won't dissolve. Yeah, you know and I know that you're unlikely to force your baby to actually eat those lumps, but hey, maybe somebody out there may overlook one inadvertently, or some precocious baby actually feeds himself (I've heard this happens), and all of a sudden you've got a choking baby on your hands. Which is not good. We try to avoid that.

I'm a little bothered that there's no mention of this on Gerber's actual site as of yet, but the known facts are that the recall involves Gerber organic rice and oatmeal cereal (in an 8-oz. box). You can call the Gerber parent's resource center at 800-443-7237 or 231-928-3000 to return the product and receive a refund.

Babble Talk: Nuby Victorious in "Battle Sippy Cup"

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:21:00 GMT

Babble's Nicole Feliciano recently put five popular brands of sippy cups to the test, and the brand that came out of top—beating out better known brands Playtex and Gerber—is the candy-colored Nuby.

Feliciano likes that the Nuby has no valves or straws, and frankly, I do, too. Washing crusty sippy cups is one of those crap duties of parenting that no one ever tells you about.

Personally, I'm a fan of the Evenflo insulated straw cups, they don't seem to get as grungy, and they hold enough liquid to quench a thirsty preschooler's thirst. What about you? Got any sippies you'd to recommend?