Heinz Green Beans babyfood vs Thrive FD Green Beans babyfood

Appearance:
Heinz - I thought green beans were supposed to be green...the name has the word "green"... doesn't that imply something? Anyways, babyfood yellow/green/brown...and water leaks out of the babyfood if you leave it sit for an hour
Thrive - definitely green and holds it's appearance for at least an hour (that is, water doesn't leak out)

Ingredients:
Heinz - green beans, water
Thrive - freeze dried green beans, water

% of nutrients intact:
Heinz - completely unknown...but considering the color of the "green" beans, the nutrient level has to be somewhere around 50% (or lower) of the original, intended vegetable.
Thrive - guaranteed to have at least 96% of original nutrients as all produce is picked when it it ripe, cleaned/sliced/flash frozen within 4 hours of being picked, then freeze dried to lock in nutrients.

Shelf Life:
Heinz - sealed shelf life of 2-3 years; opened shelf life of 1-2 days in the refrigerator
Thrive - sealed shelf life of 25 years; opened shelf life of 1 year in the pantry.

Packaging:
Heinz has a glass jar (which is good) but a lid that has a BPA lining (BPA would leach into the food)
Thrive cans are coated with food grade enamel

Source of vegetables:
Heinz - completely unknown
Thrive - grown in USA, certified gluten free, non GMO, no allergens

Taste:
Heinz - bitter tasting... to be honest, I can't immediately identify these as green beans
Thrive - very flavorful!! Incredibly good! I am eating it by the heaping spoonfuls

Price (current at January 2014):
I can't even find a common denominator to convert serving sizes for these 2 competitors.... but here's what I paid for each....
Heinz - paid $0.85 yesterday
Thrive - Q price for a pantry can (with 17 servings of 1/4 cup per serving) is $6.79US. A #10 can (with 51 servings of 1/4 cup per serving) is $15.59US.
Even if you use the stated serving amount, you are saving tonnes of money.... pantry can cost per serving is $0.39US per serving, and a #10 can cost per serving is $0.31 per serving


Hope you have enjoyed my comparison! I would be more than happy to come to your house and show you how easy it is to make babyfood from Thrive. Just send me a msg and we can set up a date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

to make babyfood out of Thrive freeze dried food:
1. put desired amount of dry freeze dried food/dehydrated food into a clean coffee grinder,
2. grind to desired powder consistency,
3. pour powder into serving bowl,
4. add warm, room temperature, or cold water to the powder, a teaspoon at a time, mixing as you go, until you achieve desired consistency

All Thrive fruits, vegetables, and meats can be made into babyfood following this same procedure.  View all of the vegetables here:
https://shanna.thrivelife.com/all-products/thrive-foods/vegetables.html

Heinz Creamed Corn babyfood vs Thrive Sweet Corn FD babyfood

Appearance:
Heinz - Yellow with a tinge of brown. Looks like corn
Thrive - Definitely yellow....definitely corn.

Ingredients:
Heinz - corn, water, rice... rice? Why is there rice in this product? The label says "creamed corn", not "creamed corn with rice"....that's weird.
Thrive - freeze dried sweet corn, water

% of nutrients intact:
Heinz - completely unknown...
Thrive - guaranteed to have at least 96% of original nutrients as all produce is picked when it it ripe, cleaned/sliced/flash frozen within 4 hours of being picked, then freeze dried to lock in nutrients.

Packaging:
Heinz has a glass jar (which is good) but a lid that has a BPA lining (BPA would leach into the food)
Thrive cans are coated with food grade enamel

Source of vegetables:
Heinz - completely unknown
Thrive - grown in USA, certified gluten free, non GMO, no allergens

Shelf Life:
Heinz - sealed shelf life of 2-3 years; opened shelf life of 1-2 days in the refrigerator
Thrive - sealed shelf life of 25 years; opened shelf life of 1 year in the pantry.

Taste:
Heinz - tastes like the cans of creamed corn that I used to eat as a kid many, many moons ago... I haven't eaten this in years, so I don't know if it tastes the same. Tastes good, though.
Thrive - OMG...so good! Tastes like freshly picked corn on the cob that you would eat right at the farm. Loving this!

Price:
I can't find a common denominator to convert serving sizes for these 2 competitors.... but here's what I paid for each....
Heinz - paid $0.85 yesterday
Thrive - Q price for a pantry can (with 15 servings of 1/4 cup per serving) is $8.09US. A #10 can (with 46 servings of 1/4 cup per serving) is $17.79US.
Even if you use the stated serving amount, you are saving tonnes of money.... pantry can cost per serving is $0.53US per serving, and a #10 can cost per serving is $0.39US per serving


Hope you have enjoyed my comparison! I would be more than happy to come to your house and show you how easy it is to make babyfood from Thrive. Just send me a msg and we can set up a date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

to make babyfood out of Thrive freeze dried food:
1. put desired amount of dry freeze dried food/dehydrated food into a clean coffee grinder,
2. grind to desired powder consistency,
3. pour powder into serving bowl,
4. add warm, room temperature, or cold water to the powder, a teaspoon at a time, mixing as you go, until you achieve desired consistency

All Thrive fruits, vegetables, and meats can be made into babyfood following this same procedure.  View all of the vegetables here:
https://shanna.thrivelife.com/all-products/thrive-foods/vegetables.html

Heinz Beef with Broth babyfood vs Thrive Cooked Roast Beef babyfood

(there are other Thrive freeze dried meats, but this is the only one that I have on hand at this time)

Appearance:
Heinz babyfood separated during storage so it had layers of fat, liquid and pink/brown stuff. Once stirred, it still looked pinky/brown with a very gooey-looking texture to it.
Thrive babyfood had the same color as cooked meat.

Ingredients:
Heinz contains beef, beef broth, concentrated lemon juice
Thrive contains freeze dried cooked beef, salt
(I cannot equally compare the nutritional facts as Heinz has it's servings in mL and Thrive has servings in grams)

Packaging:
Heinz has a glass jar (which is good) but a lid that has a BPA lining (BPA would leach into the food)
Thrive cans are coated with food grade enamel

Source of meat:
Heinz: completely unknown...and the pinkish hue is making me think of all those bad pink slime articles/movies that are out there.
Thrive: roast beef from cows in USA, certified gluten free, non GMO, no added hormones, no antibiotics

Shelf Life:
Heinz - sealed shelf life of 2-3 years; opened shelf life of 1-2 days in the refrigerator
Thrive - sealed shelf life of 25 years; opened shelf life of 1 year in the pantry.

Taste:
Heinz: oh-my-gosh...give me strength...I tried the tiniest little amount and it really didn't taste like meat...it was *not* good at all.
Thrive: a bit salty, but definitely meat.

Price (current at January 2014) .... since the serving sizes are in completely different units of measurement (mL vs g), I am going to compare rough estimates of equivalent servings based on protein content.

Heinz: paid $1.69 for 1 small jar (yesterday) with 13g of protein per serving

Thrive: Roast Beef is on sale this month (January), and the Q price (which you would pay by contacting me directly) for a pantry can is $18.59US, where the pantry can contains 7 servings where each serving contains 23 g of protein. Rough estimate... let's say that the pantry can contains 12 servings, which would make it roughly equivalent to the amount of protein in Heinz. Based on that, one "revised serving size" of babyfood would be $1.54US per serving.
If you purchased a #10 can for $45.79, with 22 servings of 1/2 cup, or 41 "revised serving size" of babyfood, your cost per serving would be $1.12US per serving


Summary:

Heinz beef with broth
- had to be stirred to blend layers
- smell quite...strong...the word putrid comes to mind
- was pinky/brown in color
- had a globby texture to it
- jar lid contains BPA; some BPA leaching into food
- unknown source of meat
- unknown country of origin
- unknown GMO status
- unknown gluten free status
- "no added salt or modified starch"
- price per serving = $1.69

Thrive cooked roast beef
- had to grind freeze dried food to a powder and add water/broth
- smells like meat... can't say it any other way
- was brown in color
- looked like meat...had a fibrous texture, like that of actual meat (because it is real meat)
- container enamel lined; no possibility of chemical leaching
- USA meat source
- non GMO
- gluten free
- has salt added
- price per serving of babyfood = $1.54US from a pantry can or $1.12US from a #10 can

Hope you have enjoyed my comparison! I would be more than happy to come to your house and show you how easy it is to make babyfood from Thrive. Just send me a msg and we can set up a date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

to make babyfood out of Thrive freeze dried food:
1. put desired amount of dry freeze dried food/dehydrated food into a clean coffee grinder,
2. grind to desired powder consistency,
3. pour powder into serving bowl,
4. add warm, room temperature, or cold water to the powder, a teaspoon at a time, mixing as you go, until you achieve desired consistency

All Thrive fruits, vegetables, and meats can be made into babyfood following this same procedure.  View all of the meat products here:
https://shanna.thrivelife.com/all-products/thrive-foods/meats-beans.html

Thrive freeze dried strawberries/bananas vs Kirkland freeze dried strawberries/bananas

I have had a lot of requests for this comparison! There are several important differences to consider here....


GMO:
Kirkland - GMO
Thrive - non GMO
**This is a *huge* difference, and really doesn't make it a fair comparison. Specifically, when our bodies receive a genetically modified food, our body does not recognize it and doesn’t know what to do with it. The body can respond to a GMO with an allergic reaction or an autoimmune reaction, and eventually lead to infertility, immune problems, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs including the digestive track. Why are there GMO's? Several websites state that it is so the crops can be more resistant to highly toxic weed killers, or so the plant can produce their own poisonous insecticide inside every cell.

Country of Origin:
Kirkland - package indicates that it is a product of the USA, but there are reports on the web that Kirkland freeze dried food was from China.... or it used to be from China. Glad they moved to a better source
Thrive - bananas are from Ecuador and strawberries are from USA. Thrive chooses the best possible food sources from around the world. They have set a very high standard and constantly test their products to ensure those standards are met or exceeded.

Shelf Life:
Kirkland - unopened package lasts under 1 year (stated expiry date is Oct 16, 2014)
Thrive - unopened can lasts 25 years. Opened can lasts 1 year.

Packaging:
Kirkland - flexible individual packages are non-recyclable
Thrive - pantry cans and #10 cans are recyclable. Some products are available in non-recyclable flexible packaging.

Price (not a fair comparison since it is comparing GMO and non GMO products):
Kirkland - paid $16.69 for a box of 20 pouches, where there were 10 10g apple pouches, 5 12g strawberry banana pouches, and 5 10g apple with cinnamon pouches. Since there are 3 fruits involved, all with different prices (originally), it's hard to figure out a completely accurate price. But, the price per gram is $0.083
Thrive - Q price for a #10 can of fuji apples is $28.29US for 46 servings of 1/4 cup (7grams) equals $0.088US per g, bananas is $25.99US for 42 servings of 1/4 cup (11grams) equals $0.056Us per gram, and sliced strawberries is $25.69US for 44 servings of 1/4 cup (4grams) equals $0.146US per gram. So....assuming that the strawberry banana pouch contained equal measurements of each product, we could say that a 12g equivalent of Thrive strawberries and bananas would cost ($0.146US per gram + $0.056US per gram)/2 = $0.101US per gram

Taste (I had my husband, and my 5 & 7 year old kids each give me their own opinions):
Kirkland - Banana's were sliced thinner (which was nice), but the taste was described as "plain" or "yucky". Strawberries taste like they were overripe, and has an aftertaste that just doesn't go away... even after coffee.
Thrive - Banana's are sliced thicker and the taste is really "flavored" and "tasty". Strawberries "taste a *lot* better; *way* more flavor.

In summary, Thrive is a bit more expensive per gram for the strawberry/banana combination when you are looking at your wallet... but the long term health implications of eating GMO food are equally important and really need to be considered. Taste-wise, Thrive is the clear winner.

I do have a lot of the Kirkland packets available and will be bringing a packet to every home party so you can do your own comparison. Contact me to set up your sampling session and take advantage of the incredible savings on Thrive packages! I hope you enjoyed my comparison :)

For more information on Thrive's strawberries:
https://shanna.thrivelife.com/freeze-dried-strawberries.html

For more information on Thrive's bananas:
https://shanna.thrivelife.com/freeze-dried-sliced-bananas.html

<<update April 30, 2014 - I have returned the Kirkland freeze dried food because a large majority of the packages were recalled due to salmonella contamination - I will never buy Kirkland freeze dried again>>