When Teresa Paonessa wants to lose a few pounds, she does what any expert would recommend: ramp up her exercise and clean up her diet. But Ms. Paonessa, who runs the R.E.D Lifestyle Group, an agency that represents fitness professionals, includes another surefire strategy, one she says curbs her cravings while satisfying her sweet tooth.
Gum? Dark chocolate? Frozen grapes? Try baby food.
"I've never pulled it out in the food court but my friends are aware that I eat it," she says. "They think I'm nuts, but they say they want a flat stomach [like mine]by summer and I tell them this is what they have to do. I sell it as a portion-controlled snack, not as baby food."
No surprise, it's a tough sell. The thought of eating pureed fruit or vegetables packaged in a jar boasting "for babies 6 to 12 months" is enough to make some people skip snack time altogether. And make no mistake: Adults eating baby food is less a trend than a quirky preference enjoyed by a few.
But devotees are quick to point out that there's nothing repulsive about consuming food that you happily serve to the most precious ones in your life. Consider that baby food is almost always fat free and the serving size is smaller than a pudding cup (most range from 45 to 140 calories).
Fruit and vegetable varieties (you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who eats the beef and chicken blends) rarely consist of anything other than the main ingredient and water. Commercial brands such as Gerber have introduced organic lines, while Sweetpea Baby Foods, a Toronto-based company, packages their flash-frozen flavours in ice cube trays that can be popped out and blended into smoothies.
"You get hooked on it," Ms. Paonessa says of the blueberry flavour. "It tastes like jelly as opposed to jam."
Like any unusual diet, the baby-food club even has a celebrity fan: Sophie Dahl, the former model and granddaughter of the late author Roald Dahl, is unapologetic about her love for infant cuisine. She includes her grandfather's recipe for mashed bananas with olive oil in her new cookbook, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights.
Nostalgia is often part of the appeal. Paul Aguirre-Livingston, a 23-year-old magazine editor, says he was "addicted" to banana baby food when he was younger; later he would eat some of his nephew's infant dessert when babysitting. So when he was charged with bringing dessert for a dinner party a few weeks ago, he opted to bring six jars of banana mush instead of mini crème brulées.
"It was a gag dessert," he says, no pun intended. "I spent 99 cents for six jars, you can't go wrong. There was something kind of trashy about it because we were eating it out of the jar but I've eaten worse when drunk."
Mr. Aguirre-Livingston is convinced that more people would be inclined to eat baby food if the jars weren't plastered with big-cheeked toddlers or childish graphics.
"It's like pink is for girls, blue is for boys and baby food is for babies," he says. "[We've]been conditioned."
Lily, who did not want her last name used, agrees. "I don't think of it so much as baby food as wholesome in convenient serving sizes," says the 62-year-old Torontonian, who always has Sweetpea packages at home (she'll mix the banana blueberry with yogurt and eat the sweet potato as a side dish or snack). "Sometimes I don't have a chance to do groceries and it's nice to know there's something in the freezer that's so small and defrosts quickly."
Sweetpea is one company trying to tap into the adult market. Last month, it launched a line of vegan, kosher, organic cookies made with 100-per-cent whole grains in such flavours as pumpkin spice, sweet apple and pear and banana. Tagline: "For ages 1 to 101."
"We have a lot of customers who give their kids half the bag and eat the rest," says co-founder Erin Green.
The flower-shaped bites have far more taste than Arrowroots, which have a following among adults, but still lack the salt and full-bodied richness of an adult cookie.
It's an example of another reason the baby-food trend isn't going to catch on, says Rosie Schwartz, a consulting dietician and author of The Enlightened Eater's Whole Foods Guide.
"I think people won't eat [baby food]because it is really bland," she says. "It has no spices and no salt."
Ms. Schwartz is concerned about people who use baby food as a diet aid, especially as far as portion control is concerned. "To me that's extreme. I think people need to learn to control portions and that's not the answer."
She will recommend baby food to clients who are trying to determine whether they have allergies to certain fruits and vegetables. Short of that, she says stick to the whole fruit. "If someone is eating only applesauce, they're missing flavonoids in the peel. With peaches, it's the same thing. The pigments in the peel offer anthocyanins and other nutrients." Ms. Schwartz also notes that the more a food is chopped up or processed, the higher its position on the glycemic index, which measures the effect of carbohydrates on blood-sugar levels.
As for using it as a quick snack-food alternative, "If you'd be grabbing candy or white flour, then yeah, go for baby food," she says. "But you can't take baby food with you when you go out for dinner or to a party."
Sometimes, you just have to act - and eat - your age.