Customer Reviews

Earth's Best Dinner Variety Pack, 4-Ounce (Pack of 12)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We discovered Earth's Best when my oldest started solids years ago. They had a more limited selection then, but offered more variety than the "regular" brands. For him, we only bought a few jars each trip, those flavors that we couldn't get in another brand. For our second child, we added a few more. With the 3rd baby, we started out on the larger brands, but he wouldn't eat them. Who can blame him!? They're runny and lacking any flavor. Not to mention, no matter how good sweet potatoes are, how many jars can you eat? He gobbles up every jar of Earth's Best without any problems. When we introduce a new flavor, he's all for it.

I agree with other posts that some of the flavors are very runny. We just add a few tsp. of cereal and problem solved.

Earth's Best is more expensive. I calculated that every 2 weeks of food costs me $15 more than buying the other brands. However, we decided that since he eats it all (vs. being very picky with other brands) it's a wash.

If you want to use Earth's Best for your baby w/out breaking the bank, try these tips:
*Visit Earth's Best's website and print off all the coupons they'll allow (usually 3), have family and friends do the same

*Buy at Whole Foods. They have good prices and when you buy a lot, they give you a bulk discount

*You can also buy them by the case at Meijers for less than $10.00, cheaper than here!

I thought I was doing my kid a favor when I invested in a case of Earth's Best dinners. Unfortunately, the second ingredient (after water) for all of these is....applesauce. Or in the case of the "Sweet Potato & Chicken" variety, it's sweet potatoes, followed by apricot puree.

After getting used to the sweetness of these (try 'em - they're like jam), it's difficult for kids to adjust to "real" food. From now on, I'm going to stick with just pureeing home-cooked food. It's a lot cheaper, too.

According to a lot of reviews on top baby food brands overall, Earth's Best was always voted to be in the Top 5 of all the lists of reviews by Mom Links, Consumer Reports, Livestrong, Baby Health Sites. Here is a excerpt from one of the sites (I think it was from eHow.com):


The Center for Science in the Public Interest evaluated popular brands of baby foods, including Gerbers, Heinz, Earth's Best and Beech-Nut. According to the Center's report, Earth's Best did not use starchy fillers or "replace real food with water and thickening agents in many of their products for children over six months of age. Such adulterated products are nutritionally inferior to products made with more fruits and vegetables." Earth's Best uses certified organic products. The brand offers single-ingredient, smooth foods for infants over four months; fruit, vegetable, grain and meat blends for babies over six months; and a variety of chunky soups, dinners and vegetable medleys for children over nine months old. Earth's Best products are sold at supermarkets, natural food stores and big box stores nationwide.


Plus, my baby girl loves it. Yes, it might be a little runnier than the other baby foods, but I just add a little rice with it and that fixes it.

We only use jarred baby food as emergency food. I make all my little one's food and freeze it or give it fresh. Yes, full time working mom but really is it that hard to cook, puree and freeze basic foods like carrots that cost $1.27 for 2 pounds? I taste all the foods that my baby eats and enjoy the Earth's Best line because they taste real. It's not food that you could add to a baby shower game and go "what in the world was that?" They use quinoa and kamut flours. It is excellent all around.

I believe that the apricot puree that other's talked about in the sweet potato and chicken dinner is there to maintain the color of the food. I make my own sweet potato and chicken dinner for my little one and it turns brown. My baby doesn't care about the color of the food but I'm sure maybe a mom would freak out if she saw this color in a baby food jar - knowing how vibrant sweet potatoes are.

Half of the jars in my case were popped up. I wrote amazon and at first they offered me not even the cost of the damaged jars. I called and they replaced the entire case free of charge. This had to have happened at the manufacturing plant and didn't occur during shipping but rather was a sealing issue. I was impressed with the speed and efficiency at which amazon handled this. Will continue to be a loyal customer because of this. Customer service goes a long ways!

We love the Earth's Best line in our house. Our 9 mo old daughter will ONLY eat Earth's Best dinners, and I don't blame her. The smell from both of the other 2 brand was nauseating. I've sampled the Earth's best dinners myself, and they aren't half bad... It is baby food.... The fruit blends and veggie blends are great as well.

Organic foods are probably most important the first couple of years of life. That is when so much brain development is happening that trying to keep as much pesticides as possible away from your child's developing brain and body is a very worthy goal.

Fortunately it is a little easier than it is for a grown up. With our more varied foods and time constraints and on the go, etc. Also no matter how worthy a goal, your child has to eat the food. This is an excellent combination of flavors that I was not always able to find at local stores. And with subscribe and save it is cheaper and delivered to my door.

The flavors are vegetable turkey which lists the ingredients as Water, organic carrots, organic apples, organic ground turkey, organic whole barley flour.

Sweet potato and chicken: Water, organic sweet potatoes, organic apricot puree, mechanically separated organic chicken, organic brown rice flour.

Summer vegetable: Water, organic corn, organic zucchini, organic green beans, organic brown rice, organic carrots, organic garbanzo beans, organic canola oil.

Rice and Lentil: Water, organic apples, organic carrots, organic brown rice, organic lentils, organic canola oil

There are other Earth Best blends where water is not the number one ingredient. Obviously that somewhat calls into the question the 'value' of this particular Earth's best item. I just found the tomato and carrot one which I have ordered but not received yet. Also if you put in organic baby food in Amazon search there are some brands with just food in them for example Peter Rabbit organics (have not yet tried it, but might when she is a bit older).

Overall though I do recommend this variety pack. Our daughter likes them all and she is getting organic ingredients. And for a decent price, even considering the amount of water in them. The water being first in all 4 is giving me pause as to the overall value and definitely something I will keep in mind as to trying other brands going forward. The ingredient lists are all directly from the Earth Best's website, earthsbest.com, as I do not have the products in front of my right now.

I agree with a previous reviewer - when it comes to the dinners (just about all of the Earth's Best choices) they are watery and SWEET. Apples (or some other fruit) in just about everything, and the first ingredient is nearly always water. I've decided to stay away from these as much as possible and purchase protein-containing dinners from another jarred brand (or mixing my own). I'd really rather not nurture a sweet tooth at such a young age!

The Earth's Best fruits and vegetables for the most part are great - just check the label to make sure water isn't the first ingredient listed (I just love how baby food will have water listed first but then some kind of flour added as well to thicken it up).

I ordered this from Amazon and they were pure liquid. Like water. I did not feel at all comfortable feeding them to my daughter. Amazon customer service, however, was awesome and gave me a full refund

As I have with all other Earth's Best jarred baby food, I won't be purchasing these Dinners for my baby because the jar lids contain BPA. I contacted Earth's Best's consumer relations dept. personally, and the representative read me a prepared statement saying that the epoxy resin that lines Earth's Best baby food jar lids contains "trace amounts" of BPA, but it "doesn't come into direct contact with the food." That kind of lukewarm response wasn't enough to put my concerns about BPA to rest ... after all, packaged food is jostled-around so much during shipping that these jars could spend days upside down, with the food resting directly on the jar lids. So I guess I'll have to pass on these jarred Dinners for now. (The Earth's Best rep did say that they were doing "accelerated testing" of BPA-free alternatives for lining their baby food jars).

This is such a shame, because Earth's Best is the only company that makes organic, pre-packaged Stage 2 complete meals (e.g., with meat/protein, veggies & carbs/starch) in PUREE form. All the other organic baby food manufacturers, such as Plum, Sprout, Ella's Kitchen, etc., only make Stage 3 meals, in chunky form. Earth's Best does make some baby food in BPA-free squeeze pouches, but that doesn't include its Dinner line. I was hoping to be able to expose my little-one to a wider variety of flavors and well-balanced meals while still at the puree stage. But I guess I'll have to wait until she's old enough for Stage 3 chunky meals, or make her baby food myself. (Virtually impossible for this super-busy and domestically-challenged mom, LOL!)

Bought this after reading the good reviews - not sure if it has to do only with my package but rice and lentil mix literally has a smell of mold. I actually opened two containers to make sure it wasn't just my nose playing tricks on me. I love this brand and I am very disappointed.