About the Gerber chicken baby food 'unusual' odor  . . .  I, too, have
noticed on several occasions that when I open the jars of the Gerber
brand, it doesn't smell quite right but when I've gone ahead and used the
product, nothing appears to be wrong with my furkids.  It is odd however.
 
But just to be on the safe side, I've actually been going an alternative
route and cooking up fresh chicken or turkey from the supermarket (or
buying it frozen and cooking it up whole), pureeing it myself and THEN
using that as my protein base for the kiddos' soup.  It's just as much
protein and also a much cheaper route to go (at least for me) because I
buy these meats in bulk at several different types of 'warehouse' grocery
outlets where it's brand name products but cheaper prices per pound
because it's in larger quantities.  Poultry prices range from $1.20 -
$2.50 a pound (and I just bought chix breasts in 24 pk for $1.29/lb!).
Plus there is far less sodium in these products than the baby food and I
like that, too.
 
When I've cooked everything up and pureed it and added ground up powdered
kibble of choice(thus creating the soup base), I just freeze it either
in small batches or make ice cubes and it works GREAT!  I've always got
enough soup on hand and just have to defrost small portions at a time.
And I genrally don't add anything else to the 'base' puree until I'm
ready to serve it (i.e. Nutrical, "Dyne", other vitamins and medications,
etc.).
 
Hope that helps . . . . Jennifer and the 3 Amigos  :-)
[Posted in FML issue 4809]