Comments on: Are Baby Carrots a Convenience Food?

By: Real World Martha

Real World Martha — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:06:00 +0000

I so love baby carrots!!! My kids do too. I have tried to buy the sticks and cut them cute but the baby carrots are always requested. It also seems like they taste better.
I have to work on this some more!
Thanks for the terrific post.
Debbie aka The Real World Martha(S)
http://realworldmartha.wordpress.com

By: Milehimama

Milehimama — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:36:00 +0000

I also don't consider frozen veggies a convenience food - they are healthier than canned (and cheaper, in the case of spinach) and cheaper than fresh very often.

I buy Mott's Healthy Applesauce - the ones that are flavored blueberry, strawberry, etc. without the artificial colors. It kills my frugal soul to do it (they are almost $2 at WalMart, closer to $4 anywhere else) but it is the only way my son will take his supplements (I open the capsules and mix them into the applesauce). So I consder one cup per day a necessity.

I also buy Annie's Organics Mac and Cheese. I just don't have it in me to make mac n cheese from scratch for everybody, and I can find them for 70 cents a box at Big Lots. I dump in frozen veggies, too.

BTW - my 3 yo on up peel their own carrots for snacks and eat them like bugs bunny. They like to do it themselves!

By: carrie

*carrie* — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:14:00 +0000

Amy,

This is really interesting. We buy baby carrots and I guess I never really thought about it. Hmm–now I will.

By: Misslisslee

Misslisslee — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:12:00 +0000

I’m going to try this, as I’ve been very disappointed lately in the quality of Aldi’s baby carrots. The one convenience food I will buy is prewashed and cut up greens (my boys love collard and turnip greens). Dark greens are massively healthy, but notoriously gritty and a pain really get clean ( I have heard of folks running them through the washing machine!), so it’s worth it for me.

By: Jenn @ Frugal Upstate

Jenn @ Frugal Upstate — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:51:00 +0000

I don’t do much in the way of convenience food (I don’t consider frozen veggies to be convenience food-they are cheaper than fresh but tastier than canned-and you can’t get canned broccoli or cauliflower).

I do tend to keep either a frozen pizza or some chicken nuggets stashed in the freezer-but these only get used in “emergencies” and keep me from ordering out. I probably only use such “junk” 2 or 3 times a month, sometimes less.

My big “splurge” is different shaped sprinkles that I buy at the bulk food store. It is funny how plain cheerios or plain oatmeal looks drab, but put a few flower shaped pastel sprinkles on it, and suddenly it is much “cool”er! I think I’m still using less sugar than the sugared cereals, and still spending less than buying chocolate frosted sugar bombs. . . .

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:47:00 +0000

For the picky eaters… There is a book out called Decepetively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. (Didn’t Amy talk to her?) This is the best way to get kids to eat their vegetables and they don’t even know it!!! You can hide pureed squash for example in macarroni and cheese and I am telling you the truth, the kids can’t tell the difference. There are recipes for chocolate chip cookies and brownies..all have vegetables in it. Look on http://www.half.com to find this book fr a really good price. I bought mine from this website for $10.00 plus $3.45 for shipping. My daughter is a picky eater also so I know this can be frustrating. Good Luck.. now go and be sneaky with those vegetables.
Blessings,
Jodi

By: CR

CR — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:07:00 +0000

Baby carrots are my weakness. The thought of pealing, cutting and bagging up carrots makes me tired! Aside from baby carrots, we stick to unprocessed stuff like cucumbers, celery and cauliflower.

By: Edi

Edi — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Lately our Aldi has been having the baby carrots on sale for about .59 a bag - so we've bought a lot of bags.

My dh eats them every day and my dd thinks they are a treat and loves to snack on them.

I am lazy about peeling carrots. I actually taught my dd to do it.

When the baby carrots are not on sale - we usually peel a large bag of regular carrots, wash/slice and then put them in a plastic container with some water. That will last about a week.

I think the small carrots could be used to "entice" little kids to eat them - but then again you can cut the regular carrots as thinly and small as you want.

I don't buy many convenience foods at all - other than mixed stir fry frozen veggies

By: Amber Howard

Amber Howard — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:44:00 +0000

My daughters will eat fruit but they will not eat vegetables–there is no sneaking them into other foods or trying to hide their flavor, so I buy Flat Earth Baked Chips. Each serving has a 1/2 c. of vegetables (or fruit depending on which flavor you get.) My girls (18 mo. and 2 1/2) LOVE them! But they are not particularly marketed to kids and at $1.99, or more a bag they are not cheap. (depends on what store, WalMart is the cheapest that I’ve found)

I also use the V8 Fruit juices to help get them all their vegetables!

By: mama k

mama k — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:36:00 +0000

scandal! hehe I remember when I found out the truth about baby carrots. We stopped buying them and are making carrot sticks now.

I have been guilty of buying individual servings of applesauce, yogurt or cheese sticks for my son. At home we buy the big containers and dish out, but it is so easy to grab and run with something healthy. We made our own baby food and everything so these are the only little containers I’ve gotten for him.