I Try It So You Don’t Have To: Pasta and Lentil Bolognese Baby Food.

Baby food has not changed much in the past couple hundred years. At its roots, it is just mashed-up or ground-up adult food. (As an aside the Tumblr page for grinder is a pretty disturbing mix of stuff.)

As my kids were growing up,we made attempts to make as much of our own baby food at home, by using a hand held grinder to process whatever it was we were eating. Frequently convenience won out and we wound up with some packaged products. When I saw this newfangled container of baby food on the shelf, I was intrigued. The idea of being able to carry something that could potentially be squirted directly into a baby’s mouth, like filling a squirming, crying cannoli, was pretty cool. I scanned the shelves for a flavor that struck me as odd.  Pasta and Lentil Bolognese fit the bill.

Considering Bolognese sauce is pretty much the definition of a meat sauce, I was a bit confused by this version. Sadly I could not find one that contained those disturbing little baby meat sticks.

I had every intention of squeezing this stuff into my mouth right from the tube, but I had to give it a look and a sniff test first. The smell was pretty bad, no worse than any other baby food out there, but still bad. Squirting it into a bowl was a mistake, the results looked very much like a small dog wandered into my kitchen and left me a present.

I grabbed the packet, leaned back and squeezed some into my mouth. The tomato paste was the first thing I tasted; it was very acidic and sharp. The pasta and lentil flavor was just muted mush.  I get that baby food isn’t supposed to have a strong flavor, but somehow overly-acidic mush, with a hint of dog food, does not seem like a good alternative. I get what they are trying to do, but this just doesn’t work.

You, and your babies, don’t need to try this one.