I love the idea of being an eco-mumma. I’ve been a vegetarian for years and years, and when I was a student I took part in loads of demonstrations, candlelight vigils and reclaiming of the streets standing up for eco issues and animal rights. As I’ve aged though I have become much lazier in my planet saving efforts, and although still a keen vegetarian and cruelty free living advocate I am definitely not as eco friendly as my 18 year old self would have hoped. We are living in such a disposable society that it is always cheaper and easier (in the short term at least) to buy something that can be thrown away. And this seems to apply tenfold to parenting products – disposable nappies, bibs, food pouches, change mats, wipes, cups – the list goes on and on.
Waste doesn’t sit well with me – this is why I was absolutely delighted to discover Sinchies reusable food pouches. Not only does it mean saving more waste going into landfill but also that you can portion your sizes to your child’s needs rather than the one size fits all store bought packets – meaning no waste of food either.
One thing that I hear repeated quite often when reusable products are recommended is that they often require a lot more work than their disposable counterparts. In the case of Sinchies the small amount of extra effort that you put in will be returned tenfold – here are my top four reasons for reusing…
- You can be absolutely certain of what is going into your pouch and your child’s tummy. Although the ingredients listed on store bought pouches are ‘all natural’ you can never be sure of the origin of them or the processing involved – I have also heard packaged baby foods are heated to such a high temperature during preparation that a lot of the nutritional value is lost.
- You have amazing choice and flexibility and can use seasonal products when they are cheapest and freshest (for loads of recipe and filling ideas check out the Sinchies website)
- The only extra effort required is the filling and the washing. – which both only take less than a minute to do.
- You will save LOADS of money – you can buy in bulk and portion and freeze too.
My main concern was having extra washing to do and had been warned that they would be hard to clean – however I found this not to be the case especially as we got to try the specially designed brush that came with our pouches – it has a soft bristled end that really gets into all the corners and also a small brush that pops out of the handle that cleans the spouts. When we need to clean the brush we just stick it through the dishwasher. The pouches are all dishwasher safe (on the top shelf) but I prefer just to handwash mine. Drying is a bit trickier without a drying rack (which you can purchase if you prefer) but I got the great tip of just sticking them straight into the freezer after washing to store them – this way it doesn’t matter if a bit of clean water is still in the pouch. When you are ready to use you just take it out of the freezer and give it a rinse.
There are lots of different shapes and sizes for the pouches (with a myriad of uses) but my standout favourite have to be the reusable icy pole pouch. They are the perfect size for little hands and easy to fill with whatever we want to use. We were previously spending lots of money on ridiculously unhealthy frozen treats – now we just pour diluted fresh juice into our Sinchies and always have refreshing snacks on hand.
Cool snacks
The other thing I love about Sinchies is that they have super cute designs on them which the kids are naturally drawn to. When we received our pouches in the mail we had some yoghurts in the fridge to use up – once the boys had seen the cute fruit pictures on the Sinchies pouches they refused to eat their yoghurt until it had been taken out of the Peppa Pig pot and put into the pouch! Which was a massive bonus as it means I can now buy healthy natural yoghurt in bulk and mix with some fresh pureed fruit for a much healthier but still novelty dessert.
So if you want to save yourself some money whilst doing your bit to save the planet, head on over to the Sinchies website and give them a go!
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