A "Smashing" New Way To Get Your Kids To Eat Their Fruit

Did you know that unless you are purchasing all-natural, unsweetened apple sauce for your family you are probably also feeding them high fructose corn syrup, tons of sugar and artificial coloring along with the apples? Unbeknownst to some consumers many of the popular brands of apple sauce on the market today have lots more listed on their nutritional label than just pureed apples. Unfortunately, it is all to common to find words like "red 40" or "blue 1" listed alongside apples. Furthermore, the majority of sweetened apple sauces have twice the amount of sugar as the unsweetened variety (21 grams vs. 11 grams). Since so many of us rely on single-serve apple sauce as a lunch box staple we should take more care in ensuring our selections are the healthiest choices for our children.

Recently my family was given the opportunity to try a new organic apple sauce called Smashies. While this new product has all of the great benefits of 100% natural organic apple sauce (i.e. organic apples, no sugar, no HFCS, no artificial colors or flavors) this is where the appeal of this new product begins. If you've ever wrestled with the Herculean seals on some of these single-serve apple sauce containers or due do a caffeine-deprived early morning fog have forgotten to pack the spoon along with the apple sauce in the lunch box you will probably adore and appreciate the convenience of Smashies as much as I do -- as will your kids. The unique design and kid-friendly appeal of this package will help to increase the likelihood that your children will eat their fruit because not only is it fun but it is also easy to open and it probably won't come home in the lunch box because you forgot to pack the spoon!
Smashies is packaged in a unique, single-serve pouch that provides a squeezable serving of pure fruit. My kids loved how much fun it was to slurp apple sauce straight out of the package and according to my daughter, “it tastes awesome” too.

If you have trouble getting your kids to eat fruit, you should really give this product a try. It is a fun way to get kids involved with their fruit while also being an extremely portable, mess-free way to eat on-the-go. You’ll never have to worry about scooping up apple sauce from the back seat again! While my children are a bit older and this product appeals to me more as a lunch box add-on or a portable snack on the way to swim practice, I could see how this product would really appeal to moms with toddlers – you can feed them healthy, nutritious apple sauce as an alternative to the usual snacks without having to stop the stroller or car to hand feed them -- it also seems like a great way to encourage their independence!

To find out where you can find this product click on the link above. They currently offer an original flavor apple sauce, however, they have plans to roll-out three new flavors in 2009.