When I was raising my kids I found that any product made for kids was more expensive and inferior to the adult equivalent. Canned spaghetti with an cartoon character on it had more fat and sugar in it than regular spaghetti. A toothbrush with a cartoon character on it is always more flimsy than an adult toothbrush. And so on.

I dealt with this by never buying kids versions of products if an adult version existed. Didn't seem to bother my kids.

I used to rail about this as I felt that we were treating our children badly. I have come to believe that the explanation is simpler and less malicious. Adults buy children's goods but don't actually use them. They are not exposed to the shortcomings of the products.

Of course, that children's food is nutritionally inferior to adult food is unconscionable.

It seems to be self-fufilling prophecy thing - they expect kids to only like really sweet things, so they oversweeten everything made for them. I don't forsee using the children's menu much w/our daughter. and I just don't get the canned pasta thing. Canned sauce, sure. But pasta? It probably takes as long and as much effort to heat the canned stuff as to make dry pasta.

I'll keep a look out for other situation. Thanks for the tip!