While they might be convenient, squeezy snack pouches definitely aren’t a nutritious snack…
If you haven’t read the ingredient labels on these things, we’ll give you a quick rundown. Most of them contain added sugar – the yoghurt pouches are notorious for this – and the ones that don’t contain added sugar usually include whooping amounts of concentrated fruit juice, which ain’t much better! And, many of them contain additives, so don’t be fooled by their health claims.
So, fruit snack pouches aren’t automatically healthy…
Pureed fruit pouches are a popular choice for babies before they move onto solids. While this particular pouch only contains fruit, there is a massive amount of sugar in this single-serve pouch – 15.2g to be precise. That’s more than 3.5 teaspoons which is a lot of sugar for your little one’s liver to process. In fact, the WHO recommends that kids only consume around 3 teaspoons of sugar a day, which would be blown out of the water after this single snack!
And, yoghurt pouches aren’t much better…
The ingredients in this particular yoghurt snack might all be “organic”, but it also contains a fair whack of sugar for a small snack. This one comes in at 13.4 per 120g serve. Sure, some of this is naturally occurring lactose – roughly 4.7g – so that still leaves over 2 teaspoons of added sugar. Not really what you want your growing kid sucking down!
It’s actually super easy to whip up your own sugar-free versions…
Thanks to the invention of reusable pouches, you can easily replicate these snacks but with way less sugar – and they’ll work out to be cheaper! Here are three simple recipes you could try…
Cherry + Mint Squeezy Pouch (serves 4)
1 cup frozen cherries
1 1/2 cups full-fat Greek yoghurt
5 mint leaves
Blitz ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth, or alternatively, use a stick blender.
Beetroot + Blueberry Mash (serves 4)
3 medium beetroot, peeled and chopped into 2cm cubes
1 cup frozen blueberries
Add ingredients to a medium saucepan, add just enough water to cover and cook on a medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until beets are tender. Blitz ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth, or alternatively, use a stick blender.
Apple + Pumpkin Soup (serves 4)
1 medium apple, peeled + diced
2 cups pumpkin, peeled + diced
1 tsp cinnamon, ground
1 cup vegetable stock
Add all ingredients to a medium saucepan and cook for 10–15 minutes over a medium/high heat. Blitz ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth, or alternatively, use a stick blender.
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