Buddy Fruits: A 100% Fruity Review and Giveaway! "Ouh…làlà! c'est bon!!!"

Posted by mControl on March 4, 2011

Hey Buddy!

UPDATE: Our winner is: Maren Ingles!!! Please send me your mailing address so we can have Buddy Fruits send you your prize!! Congratulations!

We were invited to review a product called Buddy Fruits. Buddy Fruits are a pure blended fruit in handy squeezable pouches. It is real fruit, all natural, no sugar added, no preservatives, no colorings, no additives, no fat, no water added and they are only 60 calories per serving. Plus the upside is they provide a full serving of fruit in each bag.

The Buddy Fruits don’t need any type of refrigeration until after you open them….then you would want to keep them refrigerated for up to 24 hours. I think that is just fabulous because it makes them great for diaper bags, school lunch boxes or maybe for snacks while on the go (for your baby, toddler or child). They do not recommend giving the pouch to your child under age 3, which is sort of funny to me because who else will eat pureed fruit in a bag?

I received all 4 different flavors to try out for my product review, (the following flavors: Apple & Strawberry, Apple & Banana, Apple & Multi-Fruit and Apple & Cinnamon plus their newest product Buddy Fruits ‘Fruit Bites’). The first one I tried out was the Apple & Multifruit! I wasn’t surprised to see that it looked like applesauce when I squeezed it out of the pouch but I was surprised when it actually tasted quite good, if not a bit ‘Baby Food’ like! It was a nice blend of apples and what tastes like strawberries, though there are mango and banana in it too! Hubby decided he wanted to try one out since he’s fan of applesauce’s and he picked out the Apple & Strawberry flavor, (the man will NOT ‘do’ mashed or pureed banana of any sort!). He had a similar reaction to trying something pureed in a pouch. :::shudder:::

Skeptical Lyryk

Interestingly enough, I think these products are meant to appeal to kids but not ONE of my children was willing to try them without a LOT of prodding and first watching us try it out – something about it just doesn’t sit right. Perhaps a re-packaging into a wee cup with a spoon would serve the market better? Our 3 year old didn’t want to try it AT ALL. Especially once our 12 year old said, “It tastes like baby food!”

“Baby food Mama? I’m NOT a baby!” shouted the 3 year old. Great.

So I gave her a pouch of the fruit bites and she thought those were, and I quote, “Yummy candies!” I also enjoyed the ‘candies’ – similar in texture to a block of jello, but REALLY flavorful. The bites are also a full serving of fruit and only 95 calories a bag for those that count. I’ve opted to send off some to my 83 year old father to see if he liked it. He is a borderline diabetic and having something quick and easy to pop open seemed appropriate for maintaining sugar levels. Similarly, he responded with the Fruit Bites are okay, but the pouch of ‘baby food’ – not so much. Our 17 year old wouldn’t even taste it out of the pouch and so both her and our wee daughter tried a taste off a spoon. I think the squeezing of the puree onto the spoon quite put them off as well. It looks just like apple sauce, tastes like apple sauce and has a lot of apples in it.

My next test was to try them as a smoothie. I added ice, a splash of pomegranate juice, 1/2 cup Greek yogurt and 2 pouches of Buddy Fruits (apple banana and apple strawberry mango) to the VitaMix and flipped the switch. Now we’re cooking with gas! THAT was “Ouh…làlà! c’est bon!!!”

My Buddy Fruit Smoothie!

And while I realize that wasn’t their intention as a ‘smoothie starter’ it certainly is a side effect for our family as we are not one to waste and while I don’t normally go in for conventionally grown fruits – this one time I made an exception for the sake of wholly reviewing their product.

My Overall Impression: All of the Buddy Fruits flavors tasted fresh and were very fruity. The consistency of smooth applesauce can be off putting if you don’t really like applesauce. I think they’d be great to toss in a diaper bag for your infant/toddler for on the go or even at home snacking! I would love to see even more flavors, (only organics though), added to this line in the future, especially for the fruit bites as our little one loved them and like I mentioned above, if they change the delivery method even my kids might enjoy them – but meanwhile, if we were to eat conventionally grown fruits or veg I’d certainly be purchasing the Fruit Bites from Buddy Fruits. It would be really nice if they offered a variety of organic pouches too! Perhaps this is slated for the future….

My big issue: They are not using Organic fruits and frankly, anything with Banana or Apples are really great carriers for chemicals into your body. A pureed version of potential poison particularly as they are now with an office based in the US (Coral Gables Florida precisely) I know that they must be using USA standardized conventionally grown products. Not cool for us.

Giveaway: Buddy Fruits is sponsoring a giveaway here on MommySalad. One Lucky winner will receive one box containing 18 pouches, flavors will vary.

MANDATORY ENTRY (worth 1):
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Contest ends March 18th, 2011, 11pm HST! Winner will be drawn randomly. Open to anyone over the age of 18.

Disclosure: I received product in exchange for an honest review, and that’s what you’ll get here. No compensation was received outside of the actual reviewed product, and opinions expressed are totally, only, my own, another mom bloggy reveiwer, my husbands and/or my kids. You’re welcome!

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