Message Number: YG11328 | New FHL Archives Search
From: Diane Burman
Date: 2002-02-21 08:49:00 UTC
Subject: Gerber's vs Beechnut

I have noticed that whenever a specific baby food brand name
is mentioned, it seems to be Gerber's. Why is that? I'm
curious as to why Gerber's seems to be preferred over any
other manufacturer. I happened to have both Beechnut and
Gerber's in the house and compared them (below). While they
seemed to be pretty similar, there were some subtle
differences.

BEECHNUT NATURALS Stage 1 Chicken & Chicken Broth (2.5oz
jar):
Ingredients - Finely ground chicken, chicken broth and
chicken
Calories 50/jar
Total fat 2.5g
Total carb 0.0g
Sodium 60mg
Potassium 120mg
Protein 8g
% Daily value of Protein 60%
of Calcium 2%
of Iron 6%
of Zinc not mentioned

GERBER'S 2nd Foods Chicken & Chicken Gravy (2.5oz jar):
Ingredients - Finely ground chicken, water and corn starch
Calories 100/jar
Total fat 7g
Total carb 2g
Sodium 35mg
Potassium 110mg
Protein 8g
% Daily value of Protein 47%
of Calcium 10%
of Iron 4%
of Zinc 15%

Why is there such a huge difference in calories between the
two brands if the serving size and the grams of protein is
the same? Is the difference due to the differing amounts of
fat? Would a baby food that is just chicken (in other words,
without the corn starch) be better or is it more important
to feed a baby food that appears to be more calorie "dense"?
If the higher fat content is important, could the difference
in fat content be made up by the addition of heavy cream to
my "duck soup"? Is the higher amount of sodium in Beechnut
an issue? I'm just wondering if I should be very careful to
always stick to a particular brand (should that brand be
Gerber's?) or does it really not make a big difference? I
have a ferret that has had intermittent bouts of diarhea
since around August and my vet is a bit stumped but is
reluctant to do an exploratory. With trial and error I have
begun to wonder if he's reacting to something in his diet.
He usually (but not always) seems to firm up fairly quickly
if feed strictly duck soup (no kibble) - a soup of 5oz
A/D, 6oz IAMS Kitten (purple can), 5oz chicken baby food, a
little Prozyme and 4 baby food jars of water. Since I
haven't been contientious about only using Gerber's baby
food (I've used Gerber's or Beechnut or sometimes 1 of
each), I'm wondering if the brand of baby food I choose
might be an issue as well. Any thoughts?

I tried doing a search of the archives (getting what
appeared to be hundreds of hits) but other than some
discussion about Gerber's and onions, all the hits seemed to
be rather generic recommendations to feed baby food doing
various illnesses or to help put weight on a ferret rather
than specifics as to why a particular baby food is preferred
over another. I'm interested in any input on this.

Diane & the gang