My Honest Review of Little Spoon

By Christen Russo

Introduction

Store-bought baby food has been around since the 1920s, but as a first-time mum I DIY’d my own baby foods. I bought raw, steamed, pureed, and served my daughter these foods fresh in an act of wizardry at the time I didn’t realize was an actual miracle. When my second daughter came along this past year, that rigamarole simply wasn’t happenin’. I couldn’t invent more hours of the day to introduce solids to my baby the way I wanted to, but I really wasn’t interested in introducing preservatives and unnecessary sugars alongside new flavors were I to go the route of grocery store baby foods. 

I thought I knew what it meant to rely on your village before, but this second time around I learned that sometimes your “village” is like-minded parents who create the product you wish existed. That would be Little Spoon for me. Little Spoon offers baby and toddler foods that are quality, nutrient-dense, free from added sugars, GMOs, or additives, organic, and delivered to me. This is an unprecedented era of baby food options! 

But while I loved the concept, I held judgement until I tried Little Spoon for myself. Let’s be honest, jars and pouches of even most organic baby food offerings taste first and foremost like the citric acid used to keep it shelf-stable. You’ll see what my family thought of these foods below, but here’s a spoiler: that’s not the case with Little Spoon. It’s just…food. Like what I would make in my kitchen. Score.

Little Spoon Products

Here’s everything Little Spoon has available:

• Babyblends are your classic baby foods, fit to use for baby’s first solids.
• Plates are full, well-rounded meals for toddlers and big kids.
• Smoothies, also known as “pouches” are for all ages.
• Boosters are powdered supplements that are meant to be mixed into food or drink for all ages to get an extra boost of nutrients.

Crucially, Little Spoon has food offerings that accommodate a number of common allergies and stages. Here are some details:

Babyblends are offered in…

• Single ingredient servings, which are a great intro to food for babies, a way to isolate new foods so you can be attentive to allergic reactions and learn their preferences.
• Multi-ingredient blends for when your baby is ready for slightly more interesting flavors.
• Complex blends for giving your baby some new textures to explore.

Plates are able to be filtered to find foods that fit one or more of the following dietary criteria:

• No gluten
• No dairy
• No nuts
• No meat
• No eggs

Smoothies are Little Spoon’s newest product. They’re fruit and vegetable pouches that are completely free from preservatives and artificial ingredients. They can be filtered to only show flavors with “No coconut” and are otherwise free from common allergens.

My Honest Review of Little Spoon

The biggest solve that Little Spoon provided for me was feeding my 7-month-old baby her first solids at a time when I didn’t have the bandwidth to make purees for her myself. But a not-to-be-overlooked secondary win was feeding my 3-year-old something more substantial than an endless stream of snacks. Lunch is a bit of a case to crack for us, because I often eat leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, and it can be tricky to make that look appetizing to a toddler. So, Little Spoon’s complete lunches and healthy, appetizing pouches that can satisfy everyone (even me!) between meals mean we are one well-fed family.

The Packaging
Little Spoon meals arrive in a manageable-size box that’s packed with fluffy insulation, ice packs, and a reusable cooler. The cardboard box and plastic inside are curbside recyclable (#5), and the ice packs and cooler bags are reusable. The food containers and “little spoons” are BPA-free, pthalate-free, free of harmful toxins, and also recyclable. The main thing that holds me back from ordering all my family’s food in the form of meal kits and subscriptions is the waste, but I was pleased that Little Spoon keeps it minimal. I also have been saving the tiny teal spoons because my baby girl likes to grab the spoon I’m feeding her with, so I just keep a line-up of them handy for each new bite. 

The Order Process
To start, you’ll enter in your email address and zip code, then provide some very basic info about your child including name, pronouns, and birthday. After that you’ll select your delivery volume. Little Spoon deliveries are made every 2 weeks, and you can choose from 4, 6, 9, or 12 meals per week (which adds up to 8, 12, 18, or 24 meals per delivery). Little Spoon gives you the option to peep their menu before committing to a meal volume.

Next, you’ll enter your payment info and check out, and finally you’ll select the meals you’d like to receive.

If you’re like me and you have more than one mouth to feed, you can have multiple plans running under one account. Here’s a how-to from the Little Spoon FAQ:
“To add multiple plans, select the first plan and size and head to the checkout page and click ‘Checkout + Select Meals’. Once you’ve done that, head to ‘Plans and Orders’, then select the next plan type and size, and head to the checkout page. Double check your info, and click ‘Checkout + Select Meals’.”

The Flavors & Meal Options
I am so impressed by not only the variety but also the creativity of Little Spoon meals. Starting with single-ingredient Babylends, I find it so cool that parsnips and guava can be among my daughter’s first foods; items I might not think to buy at the store for her. The next level up of Babyblends start to get exciting with their unique combos. The Smoothies include healthy ingredients that taste really yummy, often using cinnamon to add appeal but not too much sweetness. The Plates offered well-rounded toddler meals. I liked that there was a balance of hidden veggies in kid-friendly food and plain old steamed broccoli or peas as a side dish. Exposure is how you get kids comfortable with eating veggies, so Little Spoon is in support of that effort.

Our Favorite Babyblends: Peach and Eggnog. My baby is still pretty new to solids, and she liked the single-ingredient Babyblends best. My favorite was “Eggnog,” which is a mix of these ingredients: Date, Cloves, Vanilla, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Coconut cream, Parsnip, Banana. It tastes like a healthy smoothie with a dessert-y spin. 

Our Favorite Smoothies: Tahini Banana Bread and Strawberry Banana Shake. My toddler loves bananas in her homemade smoothies and pouches, so this came as no surprise to me. I vote the Purple Carrot and Acai as my personal favorite—it had just the right amount of tartness to make the flavor more interesting to me.

Our Favorite Plates: Chicken Super Nuggets and Cheesy Black Bean Pupusas. My three-year-old hasn’t experienced many chicken nuggets in her day, partially because half her life has been during a pandemic and we’ve eaten most meals at home. But she loved every bite of these veggie-filled chicken nuggets, the healthier tots, and the broccoli, too. Getting that meal into her felt like a huge win! Her next favorite was the pupusa meal, which was another ka-ching because she usually doesn’t go for beans.

The Convenience
Can’t beat it! Since having a second baby I have transitioned much of my grocery shopping to online orders for delivery, so ordering Little Spoon online feels natural and convenient to me. Knowing when to expect my deliveries helps me coordinate my toddler’s meals with our family meals for the week.

What I Loved, What I Didn’t Love

What I Like About Little Spoon
So much! But here’s what’s at the top of my list:

The flavors – It really does just taste like homemade food, and I happily ate bites of everything my kids tried. 

The ingredients – These meals are made of whole foods, and it’s a bonus that many include unique ingredients that offer a wider breadth of nutrients and flavor experiences to my children.

The novelty – Being sent complete meals that are kid-approved but also healthy is fantastic, and the fact that many of these menu items are a little different than the meals I make at home keeps the intrigue alive for my toddler. 

The cost – I haven’t talked about this much above, but it must be noted that this feels like an affordable option for my family. Babyblends start at $2.74, Plates start at $4.99 per meal, and Smoothies start at $2.50 per pouch. When I think about how many protein bars keep me going throughout the week, and then consider that I can feed my kids complete meals for a similar cost, it feels worth it to me.

What I Don’t Love
Because the food is fresh and doesn’t have preservatives, you have to keep it all refrigerated. It keeps for 2 weeks (unless frozen), and once the seals are broken they must be consumed within 1-2 days. That means I can’t toss a Smoothie in our diaper back for a future snack to have on hand, for example. But I think that knowing to expect this ahead of time makes it a very minor issue!

Conclusion

If Little Spoon sounds like a good fit for your family, here’s how you sign up. Head to Little Spoon, select the types of meals you’re interested in receiving, and enter your info in. Your first box will arrive within days! Have a few more questions before you get started? The Little Spoon Care Team is trained in Child Nutrition, meaning you can ask them specifics and they’ll be equipped to give you knowledgeable guidance.

Have you tried Little Spoon yet? How old is your kiddo? What was their favorite meal?