Review of Gerber Graduates Finger Foods

I am a stay at home mom who loves to try new things. My daughter is eight months old and had just started to experiment with finger foods. I was a little leery at first, she is my first and I the switch from the home made baby food she has been eating until now to something that she has to chew was hard.

I came upon Graduates finger foods at the grocery store, they are readily available at stores such as Giant Eagle, Kroger, Ralph's, and Meijers. They retail for about $1.89. I was lucky enough to have $1.00 off coupon so even if my daughter didn't love them I could live with the minimal cost.

Gerber Graduates come in a variety of flavors. We picked up the sweet potato puffs, because my daughter loves sweet potatoes, but you can get strawberry apple, sweet corn, banana, or cherry.

PROS:

Graduates finger foods contain only 25 calories per serving size of 80 pieces. With a calorie count like that it sounds like this could be mommies never favorite diet food.

Graduate Finger foods are light and airy. They dissolve in babies mouth so you do not have to worry about choking. This was the main reason that I was okay with giving them to my child.

They are really easy for baby to pick up. I put a small handful of the puffs down and she picks them up between her little fingers with no problem. Now how many actually make it into her mouth is another story.

They come in an easily portable container that can definitely be reused once the finger foods run out.

They have iron and zinc. Having a primarily breastfed baby I often worry that she could be low in iron. Fortunately she has no problem with this (and I have her latest iron test to prove it).

The final and most important pro is that my daughter loves them. She could eat these for breakfast lunch and dinner if I would let them.

CONS:

One of the things that they tote is that Gerber Graduates finger foods are, "puffed grains with real veggie." Looking at the ingredients I see that sweet potato powder is the sixth ingredient. The fact that sugar ranks fifth in the ingredient list really bothers me. If you do not look at the ingredients you will be fooled into thinking you are buying your child a primarily vegetable based product, this is not the case. The fact that they are made with a little bit of sweet potato powder should not make you think that this food is in any way shape or form a vegetable.

They are messy, which you will actually have with any food a new eats.

I am still trying to figure out what tri- an dicalcium phosphate is and why I would want to put that in my child's tummy.

In summary my daughter loves these. I do not like the ingredients, but that is why I have made all of my own baby food up until this point. I will probably by these again if I have a coupon, but I will be adding these to my daughters regular diet.