Hitting the Road with Squooshi {Review}

This weekend, we decided to take the girls to Disney for their birthdays.  So on Thursday night, the frantic packing began.  As usual, the list of “necessary supplies” was long – clothes, shoes, special stuffed animals/blankets, snacks, snacks, and more snacks.  I started to grab for some pre-packaged applesauce when I saw them – our Squooshis.  We’ve been using them for a few weeks now, but only on quick runs out of the house.  In that instant, I wondered if they could they handle the trip.  Would they be difficult to take on the road with us?

If you’ve never heard of Squooshi, it’s because they’re pretty new.  Launched in October 2012 by a father daughter team, Squooshi set out to conquer on-the-go nutrition.  The pouches (that come in two sizes – 4.5 oz and 2.5 oz – shown below) are BPA free, Phthalate free, and dishwasher safe.  The system is simple: after cleaning your Squooshi pouches, screw on green top, open the zip lock located at the bottom of the pouch, fill the Squooshi 3/4 full with whatever your kids like best (yogurt, smoothies, oatmeal, baby food or one of the awesome recipes on the Squooshi website), seal the zip lock bottom, and place them in the fridge or freezer.  When you’re ready to hit the road, grab the Squooshi and go.  Serve the contents to your kids straight out of the Squooshi or using a spoon, just make sure that you don’t throw it away when you’re done!  When you get home, clean the Squooshi pouch by hand or toss it in the dishwasher.  It’s a one container feeding system that’s not only convenient for busy moms like me, but good for Mother Earth.  Did you know that 6 billion single serve food pouches end up in landfills each year?  And make no mistake, that’s billion, with a “B”.

So knowing that there was a fridge in our hotel room and that I have 2 kids that can never get enough snacks, I decided to bring our Squooshi’s along for the trip to Disney.  I figured they had to come in handy at some point.

And boy was I right – bringing the Squooshis might have been the best decision I made for this trip.  Breakfast is no doubt our most difficult meal when we’re traveling.  If we don’t stop to eat, the kids get cranky.  If we do stop to eat we kill an hour and get a late start on the day.  And even if we eat breakfast in our room (which is kind of my new thing when we travel), the last thing I want to do is hand my toddlers yogurt and a spoon…because that won’t end well.  At all.  But Squooshi solved our breakfast problem.  I simply put yogurt into the Squooshi the night before and handed it to them as we were getting ready or heading out the door.  No fuss.  No mess.  No problems.  When they were done, I threw it in the diaper bag and soaked it when we got back from the parks.  And as concerned as I was that the ziplock closure at the bottom of the Squooshi would not hold under pressure from other things thrown on top of it in the diaper bag, it was very much the contrary – I actually had to pry ziplock open at the end of the day to clean it.

For afternoon snacks, I filled the containers with applesauce and threw them in the freezer.  Since it was a hotel mini-fridge, they never got totally frozen, but they did get very cold, which allowed me to carry them in the diaper bag without worry that they’d get hot during the day.  And they were a total hit.   My girls loved the cool snack inside the Squooshi and the bright characters on the front – the purple was Greenleigh’s favorite, and Hazeline kept asking for the blue bird.  I loved how much money I was saving.  Seriously, do you know how much those single serve applesauce containers cost?  They’re convenient, but not cheap.  Trust me.  In the past, I’ve paid over $2 a piece!  And that price tag makes me pretty crazy about having them finish every single drop, even if they aren’t that hungry.  But since I paid $2 for the entire jar of applesauce and was able to use it several times over a few days, I didn’t mind if they didn’t finish the entire thing.  It definitely made me less crazy.

Simply put: Our Squooshis are coming with us on every trip from this point forward.  And now that we’re home, I’m going to try some of the recipes on the Squooshi website.  They look so easy!

To learn more about Squooshi make sure to check them out on Facebook, Pinterest, and follow them on Twitter.

Disclosure: I received the items above to facilitate my review.  All thoughts and opinions are mine.