Tested: Infantino Fresh Squeezed

About a month ago, I was selected as a product tester* for Infantino's new line of baby food storage system. If you don't want to read the whole post, this is the main take away point: I love it. There are a few things I would tweak or change, but overall, the Fresh Squeezed system is awesome.

We got to test all this stuff!

The main component is a device that allows you to inject purees into pouches. Pouches are all the rage nowadays because they are so portable. Glass baby food jars are fine for keeping in the fridge at home, but if you are on the go, pouches are the way to go. With the Infantino system, you attach a pouch, put the dispenser on top, add puree of your choice, push down with the plunger, cap, and voila! The greatest thing about this, aside from how easy it is to use, is that you can control exactly what goes in the pouch. No reading labels to check for gross stuff. You puree your own fruits and veggies and you are good to go!

The filling station in action.

There are two options for pouches: the disposable, single use or the reusable silicon. The disposables are theoretically four ounces each. I say theoretically because there is no indication on the filling station of how full each injector should be to reach four ounces. There are some plastic lines on the sides of the injectors, but I'm not sure if they are intended as fill lines. Since I'm apparently not a great judge of how much four ounces is, I way overfilled the first pouch. Super, ridiculously overfilled. It was oozing back out the top when I tried to take it out of the station and I got pureed sweet potato everywhere. Another tester said the same thing, so I'm really just echoing her sentiment here, but I wish there was a fill line or some kind of indication of how much puree to put in to equal four ounces. Also, it's a little hard to rinse out the injectors with something kind of sticky, like sweet potato. You really need a bottle brush or similar to get the whole thing cleaned out for the next use. Everything else we tried rinsed off fairly easily - peas, chickpeas, yogurt, fruit. Otherwise, it's super easy and fast.

The silicon reusable pouch is a good idea, but it's fairly bulky compared to the disposables. I also had a harder time filling it than the disposables. The directions don't specify this, but I found that I had to squeeze out as much air as possible out of the pouch before attempting to squeeze the food in. Otherwise, there was nowhere for the air to go and the pouch wouldn't fill because of the air pressure. It also seems to hold a lot more than the disposable pouches. I had a lot of room left at the top of the bottle when I filled it with the same quantity as the disposables. I like the disposable idea - reduce, reuse, recycle and all that, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to stock a bunch of them, whereas the disposables are super easy to fill and store a bunch at once. Maybe if the reusable was more like a bag and less like a bottle? Also, I wish the reusable pouch had come with labels or something so you could label it without worrying about having permanent marker on your reusable pouch. The disposables come with a warning to not reuse them, but I felt pretty bad throwing away the pouch and cap away after we ate the peas. I really wanted to reuse the cap, especially.

There is a spoon attachment you can get for the pouches that is really clever. You thread the spoon onto the end of the pouch and you can feed your baby from them spoon. It's really clever. Baby Guy was pretty interested in holding the spoon and getting pureed peas all over his hands and face, but I imagine it could be less messy for an older baby. It's also a good way to control how much comes out of the pouch at once. If you want a slower rate, put the spoon on. Otherwise, just let the baby have it right out of the pouch opening. I ate the peas that way and it was fairly fast. (And tasty!)

The system has a bunch of fun accessories, too. My favorite was the "Steam n' Smush". It's exactly what it sounds like. A little bowl with a colander and a masher accessory. The bowl is on the small side, but it will hold one small, diced sweet potato, for example. Just put a bit of water in the bottom, put the top on and pop it in the microwave for a minute or two. The steamer basket can be a little awkward to fish out if you overfill the basket, like I did, but it's not an insurmountable obstacle. I was really impressed with how well it worked. I didn't bother with the smushing part, as I wanted to puree everything to a fairly creamy consistency, but if you have an older baby, the smush would be great as it would leave some texture without having everything be too chunky. I would also wager that the smush wouldn't really work with the fill station unless you cooked the veggies super soft and mashed the heck out of them. Otherwise, I think there would be too many lumps to make it through the fill hole. The only thing I would change is I would make it bigger. Or have it available in two sizes (small and large).

Steam and smush!

As easy as the whole thing is to use, I would still want to make a fairly large quantity of food if I was going to all the trouble of making baby food, so I wish everything came in larger sizes. A fill station with five fill ports would be ideal, I think. Having said that, everything is sized to match right now. The amount of veggies that fit in the steamer is the amount that will fit in the pouches once pureed,. But it would be nice to have a corresponding larger size of everything.

The only part of the system that left me underwhelmed was the Peppy Puree. It's basically a small food processor. I was pretty excited about this part, but ours never worked correctly. I think there is a stripped gear or washer or something in the base, so the blade couldn't catch and turn. It's also really loud, though that may have been a function of it being broken. It's pretty difficult to get the base and the lid properly attached in the beginning. Once you get it on the first few times, it gets easier, but it's pretty stiff right out of the box. Since we couldn't get ours to function properly, we ended up just using the Baby Bullet to puree. And really, any type of food processor or blender will work.

Some tips:
1. Make sure everything is pureed very smooth. Because the injector openings are small, it does not handle chunks well.
2. Make sure you have enough liquid in the mix when you puree. It makes both blending and filling easier.
3. Invest in a small bottle brush for cleaning thick or sticky stuff out between uses.

Some of the combinations we tried:
1. Coconut milk, Thai curry paste (just a smidge), sweet potatoes.
2. Peaches, blueberry soy yogurt, coconut milk.
3. Chickpeas, miso paste, coconut milk.
4. Peas, plain soy yogurt, dill, garlic powder.

Other ideas we didn't get around to:
1. Cucumber, plain yogurt, mint (or dill).
2. Potatoes, veggie stock (or water), curry powder.
3. Pineapple, pineapple juice, coconut milk, plain yogurt.
4. Cooked oat bran, bananas, mango, apple juice.
5. Cooked red lentils, cooked rice, coconut milk, mustard.

The coconut curry sweet potatoes were a hit, but Baby Guy was not a fan of the garlicky peas. It might be too strong a flavor for him since he's so young and relatively new to solids. All in all, I think we will get a lot of use out of this system. It's really easy to use and super fun. And though I wish it came in a larger size, the smaller size allows you to try out a bunch of different flavor combos. I love that you can customize so easily. Need to pack in more calories? Use coconut milk. Need more iron? Put in spinach or kale. Need more fiber? Add some brown rice or oats. Endless possibilities and super convenient pouches. Oh, and everything is dishwasher safe, BPA-, PVC- and phthalate free. Love, love, love.

This goes in...

This comes out!

*I have received the Fresh Squeezed Squeeze Station from Infantino to facilitate my review.