Stonyfield Farms is an organic food company located in Londonderry, NH. They pride themselves on using only organic milk that comes from cows that have never been treated with growth hormones or antibiotics as well as using fruits and vegetables that have never been chemically treated. They make a wide variety of baby food products and we recently tried out the Drinkable Yogurt in the six ounce bottles.
You can also get these in cup form if you don’t want to have the bottles taking up space. I prefer the bottles because they are resealable so if I want to add milk or juice to it, I can close the bottle up and save it for later. Some of the flavors include Peach, Pear, Banana, Blueberry, Apple and Vanilla. The taste is slightly different from regular yogurt; there is no strong milk aftertaste to it and all of the kids that have tried it have really loved the taste of it.
If you have a child that isn’t content with just yogurt you can also get the YoBaby Plus Fruit & Cereal; that has a nice mix of pureed fruit and whole grain cereal added to it so all you have to do is remove the top and you are ready to go. Once they reach the age of two you may want to consider the YoKids yogurt products. These contain whole milk but 25% less sugar. They cost a little more than regular yogurt but they are a lot better for kids. I picked up some of the Cherry & Berry YoKids Squeezers and they were a huge hit.
Stonyfield claims that their drinkable yogurts are “sippy cup friendly”, that was something that I had a hard time believing because if you have ever served a child anything in a sippy cup, you know the valves can get clogged in a heartbeat. We tried this out in two Gerber cups and a Playtex cup and it passed the test with all three. Yes, you read that correctly, this product will go through a sippy cup without clogging.
Personally, it doesn’t matter if a product is organic, healthy or made from pristine ingredients if a child will not eat it. Thankfully every child that has had any of the Stonyfield yogurt products have loved them and will pick them over other brands that might be in the refrigerator. The older kids really like the squeezable ones; they can toss them in their backpacks or lunch bags and have something that’s great tasting and great for them when they feel the urge for a snack.
One thing that I really like is the fact that they have tours of the farm and manufacturing facilities. They are currently doing construction so the tours have been put on hold but they hope to have them operating again soon. When we visited the farm it was a fun time for everyone; you got to see how these were harvested, learn about what makes an organic product truly organic and what passion they put into their products. It is a fun, entertaining and educational place to visit and if you are a homeschoooler, there are plenty of things to explore.
