I went with something a little different this week. Everybody reading this ate baby food when they were infants, obviously. And the overwhelming majority of people probably had processed, jarred or canned baby food at least once, too. But, in some ways it's like we didn't have it, since we don't have memories of it. (Unless you're the rare person who was fed baby food when they were older, or you're one of those odd folks who has memories before the age of 3 or so.) There are other exceptions to this, of course--I'm guessing some parents occasionally try a bit of their child's food, or older children might have some of a younger sibling's dinner, or maybe poor unfortunates recuperating a broken jaw might put baby food on their limited menus. Anyway, I thought it might be fun to revisit a type of food that I definitely used to eat regularly, but haven't had for over 45 years. (Yes, I'm old.) For the record, I tried to get some variety, so I got three companies' takes on it. Specifically, the apple/wild blueberry and the apple/zucchini/peach selections from Gerber, the pear/mango/spinach one from HappyBaby, and the sweet potato kind from Beech-Nut.
It can vary from baby to baby, clearly, but in general, most infants start on so called baby food around the ages of 4-6 months, and continue up until the age of around 2 years old. The clues that a baby is ready for this change are a loss of tongue thrust, the ability to sit up on their own, and showing interest in other people's food. Since infants have none to few teeth during this stretch, the food they can manage is necessarily very soft in texture (i.e. it can be "gummed"), and easy to digest. Up until the 20th century parents just made baby food on their own, by thoroughly chopping up and blending regular foods.
Let's start with the leader of the pack, at least in the U.S. Gerber has a stranglehold on the processed baby food market, with a market share that's estimated at around 60-70%, and had a gross revenue of $235,000,000 in 2017. Gerber started as the Fremont Canning Company, out of Fremont, Michigan, in 1901. Founder Frank Daniel Gerber originally sold canned vegetables and fruits. However, in 1927 the company began making processed baby food, and by 1943 Gerber stopped making food for adults. They also changed their name to Gerber in 1941. Other products sold include other baby-related items, such as pacifiers, formula, vitamin supplements, clothes, and toys. And also, oddly, life insurance. In 2007, Gerber was acquired by the Nestle Corporation. Gerber did try one final foray into selling adult food, in a strange way, in 1974. It was their Gerber Singles line, which consisted of baby food for adults, with flavors such as beef burgundy, Mediterranean vegetables, and blueberry delight, all blended up like typical infant fare. Alas, this venture was a terrible failure. Gerber is also renowned for its logo, of a cute-looking infant. They kept this representation from 1927 up until 2011, when they started using new drawings every new year or so. A kind of entertaining and harmless conspiracy theory formed about the identity of this original infant featured in the logo, with some people claiming the baby grew up to be someone famous. Some of these rumored candidates were Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Ernest Borgnine, Bob Dole, and Jane Seymour. (I realize conspiracy theories are often absurd, but at least one of these candidates, Seymour, makes no sense, since she was born in 1951. So how could she have been the model for a baby in 1927? The other stars were either born before 1927, or, in the case of Taylor, a bit after, in 1932.) Gerber (perhaps deliberately?) contributed to this mystery by not revealing the actual model until 1978. It was Ann Turner Cook, who spent much of her life as a teacher, before gaining modest attention as a mystery writer.
Beech-Nut is a distant second in the baby food game, but as a 15% market shareholder, they're still doing really well. The company predates Gerber, starting back in 1891 as the Imperial Packing Company, out of Canajohairie, New York. Brothers Raymond and Walther Lipe, along with John and David Zieley were the founders, and the company marketed mostly ham and bacon. After only a year the Zieleys left, and Bartlett Arkell joined, and the firm became Beech-Nut in 1899. They expanded into selling peanut butter, jam, ketchup, coffee, pasta, gum and candy. And then baby food, starting in 1931, presumably after seeing how well Gerber had done with this product. Beech-Nut has also been owned by Nestle over the years, but currently it's owned by the Swiss Hero Group.
HappyBaby is a line of Happy Famly Organics. The baby of this group of baby food makers, they've only been around since 2006, out of New York City. As the full company name suggests, founder Shazi Visram was inspired to create a line of organic baby food. Not shockingly, the company also is focused on avoiding artificial colors and flavors, and trying to use more environmentally friendly containers like pouches. (Although they do also use the traditional glass jars, since that's what my sample came in.) Currently Visram is the "Chairmom" of the Board, and Anne Laraway is the CEO and "Mom-in-Chief." I can't decide whether or not I find these amended titles whimsically funny, or overly cutesy and annoying.
HappyBaby pear/mango/spinach flavor: Came in a 4 ounce (113 gram) glass jar, as did all the others. Was a yellowish-green color. Texture was very soft and pureed, like apple sauce. I detected the pear and mango flavors, but didn't taste the spinach. Maybe that was intentional, to trick babies into eating spinach by covering up the taste with sweeter fruit flavors? Overall it was okay, and I didn't have problems finishing it. And, given that the portion was so small, for obvious reasons, even if it hadn't been palatable I probably still could have finished the jar easily.
Beech-Nut sweet potato flavor: Same size jar, and was, not surprisingly, an orange color. Had the same whipped up, apple sauce-like soft texture as the others. And it tasted like minced sweet potato. Which is a positive to me, since I like sweet potatoes. It was more savory than sweet, though.
Gerber apple/zucchini/peach flavor: Color was yellow, like apple sauce. Taste was rather like slightly savory apple sauce. So alright, but not great. Like the HappyBaby one, maybe this was a way to get babies to eat their vegetables by covering up the taste with fruit flavors?
Gerber apple/wild blueberry flavor: Had a purplish-red hue. Tasted like apple sauce with a slight berry tartness zing. And had the usual apple sauce like texture. My favorite of the bunch.
I should note that I could have tried some carrot flavored baby food, but I resisted, since I hate that particular miserable root. Otherwise I tried to get a decent sampling, of both fruit and vegetables. I also asked my mother about how I reacted to baby food as as actual baby. She recalled that I liked peaches, pears, apricots, and sweet potatoes. Reportedly I didn't seem to hate anything, but rather grudgingly tolerated vegetables like peas and string beans. Sweet potato was added to these to make a combo that I would more readily accept. So, none of the ones I tried as an adult were bad or anything, but I don't plan on buying baby food again, for what I hope are obvious reasons. But it was kind of amusing to go back and re-consume some of the first food types I ever had.
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