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An affordable and tasty (almost too) little snack for kids. |
I’m quickly learning another great
benefit to having a child: raiding their food stash, especially as they get older. I don’t do it
all that often (although some of my reviews might make it seem otherwise),
but sometimes I’m a little short on “grown-up” food for lunches
at work, or I need a quick pick-me-up snack at home, and don't have
very many “adult” options. That's when I find it’s okay to
snoop around and see what items he’s had sitting in his little
section of the pantry for a while…I mean, hey, it’s better than
having it go to waste!
The (un)lucky item this time is Simply
Nature’s Apple Peach Squeezable Fruit Blend, which are little
pouches of what basically amount to flavored applesauce. Aldi sells
these four to a pack, for under $2, which is a good deal made
slightly less so by the size of each pouch: 3.2 oz. I’ve mentioned
it before and I’ll say it again: these are almost too small,
as our 3-year-old has them sucked down before I even make it out of
the room. But he likes the flavor, and they seem to be pretty
healthy, so I don’t mind keeping them on hand.
In fact, the ingredients list is pretty
minimal: apples, peach puree, apple juice concentrate, and ascorbic
acid, which is reminiscent of their Little Journey line of baby food
pouches. The only differences are that Simply Nature’s pouches
aren’t organic, and they also pack in another ingredient: those
pesky “natural flavors”, which kind of makes you wonder how and
where they are used. (If I had to guess, I’m going to say it’s
the peach, because the flavor seems to have that “lab-created”
intensity to it that I wouldn’t expect to find from a natural
peach.)
After digging into one myself, it's
easy to see why the little one likes them. Most kids already seem to
appreciate the applesauce texture, which is here in spades, while the
pouch cuts back on the frustrations of making a mess, or having to
coordinate dipping the spoon into the cup. So I guess my biggest
frustration—the quick time it takes him to down it—is probably
one of the reasons he likes it so much. The strong, sweet flavor also
helps, with peach taking center stage, and the apple following close
behind. It might be overly sweet for some, but I think it's a pretty
good balance, especially for the child demographic that it is clearly
marketing itself toward. Also, for the record, I pretty much have the
palate of a child.
Good value, great flavor, reduced
mess...what's not to like?
Overall: 7.5/10. What we have here is
basically a glorified applesauce pouch, and while they're a little
more expensive than buying the multi-pack cups (and with typically
less applesauce per pouch), the trade-off is the reduced odds of a
mess, since it requires no hand-eye-spoon coordination on the part of
the child. It does feel a little anti-climactic, considering my son
has these downed before I can even leave the room, but it's healthier
than some snack items, and with a delicious peach-forward flavor that
most kids (as well as myself) will enjoy. Nice to have as a backup
snack, if nothing else, and the $1.65 asking price makes keeping them
on hand easy, without having to break the bank.
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