Only Organics: More Quinoa

This isn't a food review. This is a quick Ost because I found these in the in-laws' cupboard the other day.

I have not tried these foods. This is because I do not need to try these foods. They will taste, respectively, like banana and blueberry purée and kumara and banana purée. The banana will overpower, but there will be a slight aftertaste of berries on the first, and a hint of tannin-like kumara on the second. Yes, the quinoa may be present on concentrations of up to 2%: BUT IT IS PURÉED TO A SMOOTH PASTE. It will not be detectable.

Only Organic baby food, I have tweeted you before on this topic. Please stop. I know if you put quinoa in your baby food you are enabled to write Supergrain Quinoa! in fancy writing on the top of your packet. But here's the thing: it makes no difference whatsoever. The amount of quinoa in one of these sachets is probably similar to that which I would inhale passively whilst walking down Cuba Street at 10am on a Sunday morning.

I've done a little research into the health benefits of quinoa, and actually found it a little mor fifficult than I expected, by which I mean the first four google hits were pretty useless and then I got bored. One site, authoritynutrition.com sounded as though it would be fairly authoritive on nutritional matters. But then the first of their 11 proven health benefits of quinoa (number one is my favourite) boiled down to the following:

Which essentially in my opinion is the title  reworded. Granted, the article goes on to list the nutritional breakdown of quinoa, spell fibre incorrectly, and point out its benefits to weight loss, heart disease, type two diabetes and gluten intolerance, but none of these are particularly of concern to a four to six month old. Sure, quinoa, may be a great source of protein, but if your serving size is 1.4% of 120g, you're still getting  sweet FA protein. Then we come to this gem at number six:

Now, I'm not going to try and deny that quinoa has a low glycaemic index. But you know what has a very low glycaemic index? Kumara. That shit you've drowned your healthy, slow-sugar-releasing, all glorious super grain in. Damn. Anyway, on to proven reason number 8 that quinoa is good for you:

MAY have some major benefits for metabolic health. That doesn't sound so proven to me. Surely they can't pad out these reasons any more?

Fries are also easy to incorporate into your diet. I guess that's a proven health benefit of fries, then.

Oh, and on a side note, authority nutrition dot com, time to get better at clickbait: if you're going to have a list of eleven things, telling people that number one is your favourite then having it as such a let down means they're not going to read any further. Here's an example to help you out with the format!

So, after this brief foray into the world of health food blogs other than my own, I'm forced to conclude that Only Organic's slow morph into Only Quinoa can only be a cynical attempt to cash in on a current health fad. In which case, I fear they are already too late. According to the BBC Good Food blog, the UN declared the International Year of Quinoa to be 2013.

Heinz Organic Summer fruits and yoghurt with oats and quinoa

Remember that time I reviewed that Only Organic food with quinoa in it, and it got over two times as many page views than anything else I've written? Surely it was a one off and no other company would be stupid enough to put the almighty supergrain in a baby food?

WT actual F Heinz? You used to be a sensible company, dealing in ketchup and brown sauces, possibly a few baked beans or cans of spaghetti. Your baby foods have been mostly sensible combinations, albeit with the odd guava thrown in for no obvious reason. So why quinoa? Emily is, admittedly, two months older than last time she tried this fad, so I concede maybe it is slightly more likely she will finish her breakfast, stand up, and with perfect enunciation say to me 'Thankyou for breakfast Father. Especially, I am grateful for your foresight in giving me copious amounts of quinoa, which has given me the energy I need for my morning crossfit session. I'm off to the gym to flip some large tricycle tyres now. Ciao.'

Really. Quinoa in baby food. Next thing they'll have toddler sized Lululemon yoga pants.

Contains: Fruit (banana (31%), mango (16%), apples (5%)), Apple juice, Cooked oats (contains traces of wheat) (7%), Water, Greek style yoghurt (Cultured milk) (6%), Cornflour, Quinoa (1.7%), Cream, Vitamin C.

Two things stand out to me here. First, the very small elephant in the room is the quinoa, and to be fair, there's a whole 0.1% more in this food than in the Only Organic's quinoa based food, so I suppose there is hope of extra grainy flavour. Possibly with the promise of soft lumps within, there could even be some texture... Can you make quinoa into a soft lump?

Secondly, summer fruits: there are only three fruits listed in the ingredients for this food. You want summer fruits? You need peaches, strawberries, nectarines. Apple is predominantly harvested in the autumn months. Bananas, not grown in New Zealand, but are available plentifully year round at a reasonable price. Frankly, in my opinion really only mango can be classified as a truly summer fruit.

Emily's reaction: Generally, was quite favourable initially. However, soon food fatigue set in after half a jar. Emily is entering the stage where she wants to feed herself, and she wasn't about to be left wielding a spoon full of imitation cold sick.

First impressions: Have I used a cold sick analogy yet? In the last sentence, and several times previously in this blog? I'm using it again. It's yellow, and full of little lumps. It looks like cold sick. But to be fair, it's cold sick that smells predominantly like banana, like someone ate a banana, and then thought better of it.

Taste test: Actually against all odds, this goes down a treat. The taste is strongly of banana, with a hint of mango, but very little of the least summery of the fruity trio, the apply. Relatively thick on the tongue, little soft nuggets of rolled oats add an interest as it slides back. And YES! Sure enough, about once every spoonful, your tongue will find a single grain of quinoa! Sure, it's not actually enough to add any flavour, but it's there. That said, a similar texture could be achieved in this food by adding half a teaspoon of poppy seeds, or sand.

Overall: 7/10, not a bad taste or texture. Still can't get over the pointlessness of the quinoa though.

Enjoy: Down at the Hokowhitu Mums' organic paleo vegan coffee group, or wherever such people meet.

Only Organic Carrot, red lentils, and cheddar

There are times I sit down to enjoy a new baby food with my darling daughter, and we are confronted by a uniquely flavoursome punch to the palate, something we've never experienced before, but something we wouldn't mind much having to try again. And you know what? Because the world of baby purée is finite, we can try it again! But there's only so much deliciousness you can re -eat over and over again. So today it was on to new pastures, pastures containing carrots, red lentils, and cheddar. I very much had my suspicions that the lentils may turn out to be one of those foods added to the label to appeal to hipsters. Would I be proven correct? And would Emily make a face like this? (Spoiler alert: yes, that's why I have a photo of her making a face like this).

Ingredients: Vegetables (carrot (27%), pumpkin), Water, Apple, Cheese (milk) (5%), Lentil (4%), Ground rice.

And, it's all starting to fall down already. There's already looking as though there's more of the ubiquitous fillers pumpkin and apple in this than anything else, with a good dollop of water to boot. It's a little bit of a shock there's no kumara. And what was that I said about lentils being a trendy trace ingredient?

Emily's reaction: is pretty much summed up by the photo above. Mum had thought it a nice idea to try her on a piece of raw mushroom, a fungal delight her older brother inexplicably loves. Emily showed herself to be eminently more sensible, and had gagged and choked until the experiment was abandoned. 'Surely,' I thought, 'some pre-prepared packet food would go down a treat in this particular circumstance'. 'However,' I continued in internal monologue, 'past experience with cheese based foods would suggest the lentil and cheddar variety may not be the most welcome taste sensation.' Turns out the latter recollection was correct.

First impressions: I'm pretty sure I've previously hypothesised that if you were to add pumpkin to a food, it's going to dominate the taste and texture. If I haven't, I'll hypothesise that now, albeit in retrospect. On the spoon, this was orange. Granted, that could have been the carrots, but the sinewy, granular texture was all too familiar from previous pumpkiney tastings. The smell was, similarly, all pumpkin. Not even a hint of apple to linger over the turbinates.

Taste testing: I'm going to call it. What Only Organic have done here, is take Wattie's for Babies pumpkin and sweetcorn food, add some ground rice for texture, and put it in a packet suggesting far grander ingredients. I cannot taste cheddar. I cannot taste lentils. I will give benefit of the doubt, there may be some carrot included. But you are paying an extra seventy cents here for a bit of organic ground rice and a status symbol for a packet. Nothing more.

Overall: 4/10. Not bad, but tastes nothing like what it says it is on the packet.

Enjoy: trying to convince your friends at Thorndon Paleo Vegan Coffee Group and Crochet Club that your 9 month old is eating a pulse, when in fact they're actually eating a mass produced sludge aimed at a child half their age.

Rafferty's Garden: Spinach, apple, broccoli and pea

Today, I think I've finally stumbled upon the secret to making a top selling baby food.  Simply write down all the fruit and vegetables you can think of on separate pieces of paper, add a couple of grains if you feel fancy, or a few super foods if you feel particularly pretentious. Write 'apple' and 'pear' down on a few more scraps. Put all the pieces of paper in a hat, then draw out three or four. Mix them up in a big blender and put them in tiny little sachets. Wait for the dollars to roll in.

There is little other reason that a lot of these combinations should exist. I've written at length several times about the complete waste of putting traces of wanky foodstuffs such as quinoa and wild rice so minuscule that there is no way they can possibly impact on taste. Yet food manufacturers persist in these strange combinations that have no other business existing. Acai berries in baby purée is pretty much like having a parliament containing a member of a party voted for by 0.075% of the population, just for the sake of the representation of self-important cockatiel-lookalikes who enjoy wearing bow ties, and that we can have a pretty purple seat on the schematic representation of the House of Representatives, despite underneath everything him being nigh-on impossible to distinguish from the opinions of the rest of the centre-right.

Anyway, today's offering was one of these bizarre combinations, and with the grand contribution of 4% spinach, I wasn't holding my breath for a leafy flavour sensation.

Ingredients: Apple (70%), Pea (18%), Broccoli (8%), Spinach (4%)

Here we see the first trick in baby food manufacturing. We all know a true combination of broccoli and spinach would taste revolting, certainly to anyone under the age of 65%, and force feeding would likely be the quickest way to loose the trust of your 4-8month old. But people like the idea of eating healthy, and of giving their offspring what they perceive will be good for them, so these are precisely the ingredients they want to see in their baby's purée. So Rafferty's Garden gives them these vegetables, but in amounts which surely will have no impact on the taste of a food the contains 70% delicious apple. Really, a waste of space.

First impression: This food is really green, and as I'm pretty sure I've stated before, green is seldom a colour you want to be putting in your mouth in a puréed form. Pond weed again? Slimy bird poo? Whatever it is, the spinach, broccoli and peas are certainly making an impression colour wise, if nowhere else. Lowers my expectations,  if nothing else.

Emily's reaction: She actually really likes this one. Not as much as the traditional fruity favourites. Certainly nowhere near as much as Rafferty's Garden's other amazing offering, the Apple, pear and cinnamon. But half the pack is gone reasonably quickly, and even big brother trying to force feed her his lunch can't put her off.

Bouquet: Strong and sweet, this is apples on the nose all the way. Do broccoli and spinach even smell? If they do, I wouldn't want to smell them in a baby food, so the fragrant hints of Royal Gala and Red Delicious were a pleasant surprise on this one. If only it tasted this good...

Taste test: Initially, like the bouquet, the apples predominate as this pleasingly smooth mush rolls back down the tongue. However, as it reaches the back of the palate, the leguminous nature of the pea component lends slight nutty hints, which in her after the food has long disappeared down the oesophagus. This gives the overall impression of a smooth, but not sticky, peanut butter: not truly repulsive, but something that would definitely be an acquired taste. I had predicted the spinach and broccoli wouldn't make much impression past the colour, and it turns out I was right.

Overall: 5.5/10. An unusual combination of ingredients seemingly thrown together in a haphazard fashion give a slightly unexpected taste, which grows on you over time I guess.

Enjoy: as an alternative to mushy peas in your Friday night fish dinner

Only Organic Pumpkin and wild rice

Lots and lots has happened since I last blogged, and it's only been three days. First an foremost, obviously, #piggate! I really wanted to do a tie in blog, but alas, there is a paucity of pork flavored baby foods, and pretty much every pun about pigs has been made on twitter. So I'm going to give Pork Hameron a break on this one.

Then there's Red Peak, which has featured in a previous blog, which has finally been given leave to be included in the New Zealand flag referendum. Allegedly, prime minister John Key wasn't keen to include it initially as the colours would have clashed horribly with his other pet legacy project, getting pandas to Wellington Zoo. Cos nothing else screams 'classic New Zealand experience' quite like that. The project comes with a cost of at least 10 million dollars, for which price, by my calculation, you could also buy an economy fare to Hong Kong and a ticket to Ocean Park for every New Zealand man, woman and child who is interested in seeing a panda. Thankfully, our masterful leader is trying to talk the price down by offering to trade some Kiwi, after his initial bid of a Lord of the Rings box set, an All Blacks jersey, the latest Troskey album and 65 pregnant sheep was knocked back.

Personally, I'm keen to start a Facebook campaign and petition for the government to consider Red Pandas instead, though I'm not too hopeful that I'll be listened to.

Anyway, with such a booming new cycle, I was full of excitement when I got home tonight to find the remains of a jar of Only Organic Punpkin and wild rice awaiting me. With the surprising palatability of the same company's Kumara, sweet corn and rice (with surprise pumpkin) last week, I was full of hope that this would provide a satisfying end to the day. Hey! It says Good Night on it as well! Can't fail, surely!

Contains: Punpkin (42%), Carrot, Ground rice, Wild rice (1%), antioxidant (vitamin C)

There's an obvious big fat elephant in the room here. The names ingredients only make up for 43 percent of the food! And of that, 42% is pumpkin, admittedly the most flavoursome of the listed components, but really is it necessary to call this a wild rice food when there is a lot more bog standard ground rice? Is it really necessary to include at all? Only Organic are a repeat offender in including pointless superfoods or wanky ingredients for the sake of sucking in gullible middle class hipsters, and I suspect we have another instance here.

Also, WTF is with Antioxidant (vitamin C). Why not just write vitamin C?

First Impression: it's very orange, as you'd probably expect from something containing predominantly pumpkin and carrot (regular, orange carrot I take it, not the wanky purple carrot Only Organic include in other products). There were also a few black specks in the substrate of the food. I suspect this is the token effort to make the wild rice more obvious, but really it's just for show.It's surprisingly watery in texture, however, dribbling off the spoon. I can't say it looks particularly appetizing, but to be fair a lot if pumpkin containing purées have presented this way, and some have turned out to be quite delightful.

Emily's reaction: I missed dinner time again, after a long day at work. I suspect the fact there was  a white bin covered in bright orange stains on the table and pretty much a whole jar of this food left speaks volumes.

Bouquet: when you have four ingredients, two if them are types of rice, and a third is carrot, the food is only ever going to smell of the fourth ingredient. And it did. This food smelt of pumpkin. But it wasn't a strong smell, just a hint of pumpkin wafting up the nostrils.

Taste test: as per the bouquet, there isn't really much to this. The food is dissapointingly watery in the mouth, the fine granules of the supposed wild rice non existant in texture. The taste is also dominated by a watery influence, interestingly for a food that does not list water in its ingredients. A hint if pumpkin comes through, not sweet, not savory, just there to the extent that it registers. Rice really doesn't have a flavour at all, and barely registers. Just as the purée reaches the back of the palate, a slight sweet hint comes through, just for a second, but gives a hint of hope as it slides down the gullet. A hint that is immediately extinguished as soon as the next spoonful enters the mouth.

Overall: 3/10. Not truly offensive, but there is just nothing to this food. It's so pointless, it may as well not exist.

Enjoy with: something with flavour

12 reasons your baby NEEDS to eat Rafferty's Garden pear and Superberries: number 11 will leave you speechless!

And, as promsised, after a short hiatus, here comes part two of a continuing series on stage one and two baby purées with stupid ingredients. Today: Acai berries! I had little idea what these (apparently small, black) nuggets were prior to picking this out of the cupboard on a trip to dinner with the in laws today. Who eats these things? Do they have the same powers as eating quinoa and doing crossfit, in that they make you insufferable for anyone else to be around? WTF are they doing in my baby daughter's food? I felt some research was in order, so I logged in to the font of all well being knowledge, the Global Healing Centre, and found these amazing super fruits have not one, not two, but TWELVE super benefits!

1. Heart health
Are you worried about the health of your under-one-year-old's heart? Of course you are. But how much red wine should you be giving them to ensure their ticker remains in tip top shape until they're able to legally buy their own? Great news! That need not concern you any more as Acai berries have been proven to be just as beneficial as a glass of Pinot a day!

2. Resistant to harmful organisms
This sounds promising, but we need some more info on what organisms these are.... E. coli? Sharks? 14 year olds with home built clocks? Details, GHC!

3. Aids in weight loss
Very important if your six month old has leg rolls like mine does, with baby swim lessons starting in a few months these berries will help her achieve her ideal rash suit body. Helps maintain a lower weight too, probably cos you're stuck eating tiny little berries and not much else.

4. Promotes skin health
No mention of what skin conditions this treats, but infantile eczema can be a bitch.

5. Helps with digestive upset
A traditional source of dietary fibre, though when mashed into a purée, how much of this fibre remains is debatable. Might be better off with baby oats, but why take the chance, given they're not officially that super?

6. Reduces irritation
If your baby is grumpy, colicky, or just generally gets on your wick, this could be the ideal answer! I feel calmer for having tried this already!

7. Improved cellular health 
With plentiful antioxidants, general well being at a CELLULAR LEVEL are bound to leave you buzzing, and you know that must be good because it sounds sciency. And it helps get rid of free radicals, which is great cos that Only Get What You Give song really grates after a while. (OK, that's New Radicals, but I'm gonna leave that line in anyway)

8. May help fight cancer
Though if you do have cancer, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are probably going to give you a better fighting chance than eating sachets of baby purée

9. Anti-aging effects
Along with the weight loss benefits, this is likely going to be every baby's major concern once they hit the big 6 month milestone.

10. Energy boost
Every parent's primary concern, that their small child just doesn't have enough energy to continue causing the havoc that is part of their daily routine. However, a cheaper way to provide this adding stimulation may be instant coffee with a few extra spoons of coffee.

11. Better sex
No further questions, M'Lord.

12.  Improves mental function
There are great studies showing some early promise of boosting mental functioning in menopausal women eating Acai berries, and I'm sure the correlation is clear!

Anyway, with all that said and done, we need to make sure that Rafferty's Garden Pear and Superberries. actually tastes the part. The super berries alluded to in the name are not just the Acai (2%), but also blueberries (8%) and black currants (2%) (is a currant actually a berry? I don't know, this could be cheating.) The balance,  a massive 88%, is made up by pear. A thin, purple liquid on the spoon, this looked like something that would be quite pleasing to insert into the mouth. Emily certainly started with relish, but ran out of steam with a hyperactive brother taking precedence over finishing her meal.

On the nose, the blueberries and black currants dominate in a rich, deep and alluring bouquet. I haven't a clue what the famous Acai berries would actually smell like, so whether or not they add to this olfactory symphony is unclear. Certainly, however, high expectations were drawn for the tasting.

A thin liquid gave a slightly disappointing texture on first impression. Small, sinewy cares granules o pear pulp were quite apparent on tasting, and indeed, the overarching taste was of a sweet Winter Nelis varietal. Delicious after-hints of the berry flavours did linger, however, perhaps giving off the false impression of further subspecies- raspberries? Boysenberries? The mind played several devious tricks. Overall, in keeping with Rafferty's Garen's other options, a tasty treat.

Overall: 9/10. Delicious, and who can ignore those 12 key benefits to consumption: though at 2%, one would imagine you would need to consume a few packets to enjoy them.

Enjoy: with life, knowing you are living to the fullest, the fittest, the slimmest, the happiest, and the healthiest that you possibly can.

Only Organic Pear, Purple carrot, Blueberry and Quinoa

Mrs L Garbutt of Dunedin writes:

'I'd like to hear.... your professional opinion on WTF the point of 1.6% quinoa is, other than so they can add one more "super-food" to the label (Only Organic Pear Purple Carrot Blueberry and Quinoa - highly rated by my toddler, but possibly because she enjoys watching us gag over the smell of her gross blueberry poops rather than for its quinoa content).'

Great questions, Mrs Garbutt. As I'm sure you're aware, Quinoa is regarded as something of a 'super' grain. It gains this status through its ability to cause consumers to talk exclusively about how much they enjoy eating quinoa and how great it makes them as a person in general. It remains puzzling, therefore, that quinoa would be included in a foodstuff aimed exclusively at those who are yet to gain the neuronal power of speech, and thus are immune to its great benefits.

It's not just the quinoa, however, that warrants note here. I was initially intrigued by the inclusion of purple carrot, instead of the more common orange variety. However, my research has led me to the conclusion that actually, prior to the 17th century, most, if not all carrots were of the purple variety. This lends Only Organics' food extra hipster credential, by the inclusion of carrot in its original form prior to it becoming the popular vegetable it is today. This is carrot from when it was still underground.  

Add in the famed antioxidant properties of blueberries, and some disappointingly boring pear, and I suppose you have the perfect blend for health conscious 4-6 month olds.

Contains: Pear (30%), Water, Purple carrot (8%), Blueberries (2.5%), Quinoa (1.6%), Ground rice, Lemon juice concentrate, Vitamin C, Citric acid

Initial thoughts: The deep red/not quite maroon colour that greeted me at first squirt was not quite as expected, but not an unpleasant looking paste to consider putting in ones mouth.

Emily's reaction: this was second, nay, third offering for this meal. An initial course of home-puréed avocado (brief review: it looked, smelt and tasted like avocado) added to the super-foodiness of dinner, but was swiftly rejected by Emily. A brief interlude for breast-hydration was followed by a second sitting for solids. Emily's enthusiasm for the red purée was easy to see, and several missives to hurry up with the spooning were forthcoming. However, a recently breast-fed tummy can only take so much, and half a packet was left for my tasting purposes.

Bouquet: The most surprising bouquet of the week, insofar as it didn't really smell like any of the ingredients. Rich notes of black Doris plumb were forthcoming, with a delicate hint of summer berries lingering on the nose (mostly raspberry, however I would concede with a smattering of the 2.5% blueberry included)

Taste test: My initial thought was that this was a slightly thicker purée than the more established Watties offerings on the market. A slightly granular texture was evident on the tongue: at first I thought this to be the fabled, much publicised quinoa. On rolling the product around the mouth, I feel the pear to be the more likely culprit here. The initial taste is of the blueberries, strong on the palate, with a hint of pear. On holding in the oral cavity, a hint of carrot is revealed: whether a difference is made between this being of the hip purple variety, or whether a more widely recognised orange root vegetable would have given a similar sensation, I am unable to say. I was disappointed not to detect the nutty tones of the heavily advertised quinoa, but maybe the more refined buds of a resident of the Aro Valley, or other indigenous quinoa consumers would have more luck. Almost as an afterthought, a slightly tart note of lemon juice (from concentrate) lingers. All together, not an unpleasant experience at all.

Overall: 7.5/10. Pleasant, but for the reputation of the ingredients included, I was expecting much greater things. One to conspicuously feed your baby at Parnell Coffee Group.

Enjoy: As part of a healthy spirulina smoothie before heading out for a big session at the CrossFit gym.


Have you got a favourite baby food you would like me to review? Post in the comments, or twitter me at @lukeurmyson!