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Like shopping for most other baby products, I’m overrun with choices for baby food and snacks. Knowing I wouldn’t have time or energy to make my own baby food, I turned my research to pre-made options. As a first-time parent, I didn’t know where to start. Organic, of course, but that’s just the start of the choices to make: shelf-stable vs. fresh, single- vs. multi-ingredient, and more. The early months of my daughter’s solid food eating included some trial-and-error—for both her preferences and mine—until I landed on Cerebelly as our clear favorite.
Ingredients I Can Get Behind
Differentiating itself from competitors, Cerebelly is the only baby food with 16 key brain-supporting nutrients to aid a baby’s growth in the critical first 3 years of life. It was founded by neurosurgeon Teresa Purzner, who also holds a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology and saw a gap in the baby food market to meet childrens’ developmental needs with nutrition. Cerebelly brings together neuroscience, nutrition, and farm fresh food—something that no other brand does.
Cerebelly’s site also offers a two-minute quiz to offer their best recommendation for your child’s age, developmental needs and food preferences. For my 15-month-old, motor and cognitive development is a key focus. Their 15-17 month bundle offers six flavors such as Black Bean Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash White Bean that are best suited for her age and this phase of her development.
Image credit: @mia.in.the.wild via @eatcerebelly
While I like that Cerebelly products include these brainy ingredients, I find the brand’s ingredient mix even more compelling. I always check out the labels of my daughter’s baby food, and Cerebelly is consistently the only one that is “veggie-first.” Practically speaking, that means that any fruit-and-veggie mix like Broccoli Pear will have broccoli (rather than pear) as its primary ingredient. There’s no other brand that I’ve found where that’s the case. As my daughter gets pickier with her foods as she gets older, I love knowing that she’s getting a good portion of vegetables when she eats a Cerebelly pouch.
Cerebelly touts that it’s the first shelf-stable baby food to be recognized with the Clean Label Project Purity Award. This means that the brand’s food is tested for over 400 contaminants like heavy metals, chemicals, plastics, pesticides and other toxins, giving me peace of mind that the food my daughter is consuming isn’t harmful. At about $2.50 per pouch, they’re competitively priced, and all of Cerebelly’s products are free of the big 8 allergens and gluten, in case your little one has sensitivities in their early years.
Cerebelly touts that it’s the first shelf-stable baby food to be recognized with the Clean Label Project Purity Award. This means that the brand’s food is tested for over 400 contaminants like heavy metals, chemicals, plastics, pesticides and other toxins, giving me peace of mind that the food my daughter is consuming isn’t harmful.
Credit: @thenotsostilllife
These Flavors Are Baby-Approved
My daughter is now eating a complete diet of solid food, and she gets a Cerebelly pouch in her lunchbox every day. The brand offers a wide range of flavors, which gives me great options to balance her diet on any given day. I love the options like Carrot Chickpea and Butternut Squash White Bean, which round out the carbs, protein and fruit that she loves to eat. Many of these flavors include spices like cumin, ginger and cinnamon, which exposes her to new flavors as she gets older.
In addition to their range of pureé pouches, Cerebelly offers 4 flavors of granola bars—which they dub Smart Bars. It takes a lot of energy to keep my daughter’s diet varied day-to-day, and Cerebelly’s Smart Bars make for an easy snack to mix things up. Unlike most of its competitors, I recognize every ingredient in these bars, including dates, sunflower seed butter, and sweet potato. Even though it couldn’t be easier to throw one in her lunchbox, I can rest easy that I’m not giving her junk food at such a young age. Their crumbly texture also makes it easy for little ones to chew. I gave the Carrot Raisin and Blueberry Banana flavors a taste test myself, and now I know where I’ll be grabbing a snack for myself in a pinch.
Credit: @eatcerebelly
Whether you’re a parent to an infant just starting out with solid foods or to a toddler eating a diet of entirely solids, Cerebelly offers a range of flavors and products that will suit your routines and your child’s nutritional needs. Cerebelly even offers suggestions for which flavors are the best match for your child’s age and development on their website, if you want to lean into the brain development benefits that they boast. Cerebelly is a no-brainer for meal- and snack-time as your child grows.
5 more reasons to love Cerebelly:
1. Cerebelly is available to shop directly from their website, as well as neighborhood grocery stores like Whole Foods, Kroger, and Target.
2. The brand offers recycling of its pouches and caps through a partnership with TerraCycle.
3. Cerebelly purees can be offered to babies just starting off with solid foods, as well as toddlers and older kids who like to have a pouch or bar as a nutritious, on-the-go snack.
4. Cerebelly products are shelf-stable and don’t require refrigeration (unless opened).
5. Their pouches are packed with 16 brain-supporting nutrients, and have no added sugar.
