By Kelby Carr of Kids Cuisine and Type A Mom - My preschooler and I don’t always like the same foods. When we got a few flavors of Stretch Island Fruit Co. fruit leathers, we both reached first for different flavors. Just like a kid, she wanted the purple (a.k.a. Harvest Grape). I grabbed the Country Cranberry Raspberry.

I asked her how she liked it. “This tastes good!” she exclaimed. I tried mine, and had to agree. I can’t remember the last time I had fruit leather (I think I WAS a kid), but I remembered it being a lot closer to leather than fruit. This fruit leather, however, was not tough and painfully sugary. It has a rich fruit flavor.

Of course, it isn’t hard to convince a kid to eat fruit leather. In their mind, this is a kissing cousin of candy. The great thing about Stretch Island’s leather, though, is that it contains all natural ingredients, with nothing artificial and no added sugar.

Each leather equals half a fruit serving, handy when you have a kid who is bucking that whole level of the food pyramid.

The ingredients on the various flavors we tried, which also included Autumn Apple (delicious!) and Summer Strawberry, didn’t include crazy long scientific names you can’t pronounce and don’t especially want your kids eating. The Harvest Grape, for instance, contains apple puree concentrate, grape puree concentrate and pear puree concentrate. That’s it.

The funny thing is I liked the fruit leathers enough I started slipping them into my purse heading out the door to go to work. They make a great quick snack when you don’t have time for more. And they’re extremely portable. Fruit leathers aren’t just for kid’s snacks anymore.
Find out more: Stretch Island Fruit Co.

Image of fruit leather © Stretch Island Fruit Co.