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Snacks marketed at babies have up to 60 per cent sugar, finds CHOICE consumer group.
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Highly processed foods also contained refined flours, palm oil and minimal nutrition.
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The worst part? These products are labelled “healthy”.
The nation will have a sweet tooth from infancy, if the country’s food manufacturers have anything to say about it.
A new report from CHOICE Consumer Group finds an alarming number of packaged snacks aimed at babies and toddlers have exorbitant amounts of sugar. What’s worse, these foods are marketed as “healthy” and “organic”. Here’s a look what’s really inside the packaging.
More than 60 per cent plain sugar.
One product, Rafferty’s Garden Yoghurt Buttons Strawberry, claimed to be 93.5 yoghurt. And technically it is… but, with sugar the third ingredient in the yoghurt, the buttons are actually more than 60 per cent sugar. The only redeeming feature is the small serving size!
Heinz Little Kids Fruit & Chia Shredz don’t even have that – there’s more than 3 teaspoons of sugar stuffed into the 18g serving. Yep, that’s an entire day’s worth of sugar for a child packed into a toddler’s snack.
Negligible fruit and veg.
Baby Mum-Mum First Rice Rusks Vegetable might sound super nutritious, with kale, carrot, cabbage and spinach all featured in the ingredients. But CHOICE reveals that combined they make up less than 1.5 per cent of the whole product. Or, a laughable 0.6 of veg per serve.
And don’t get sucked in by the “made with real fruit” claims, either. Kiddylicious Apple Fruit Wriggles, for example, are filled with “fruit concentrate” and cost 3,650 per cent more than real apples ($150 per kg).
All this with a “healthy” marketing halo.
Parents to want to feed their children natural products, and companies are cashing in on it, big time. Many of the products CHOICE reviewed boasted organic credentials, but there’s still nothing nutritious about organic flour or sugar.
Case in point: Organix Finger Foods Strawberry Baby Biscuits. With a no “junk promise”, closer inspection reveals that the ingredients are mostly refined flour, grape juice concentrate (sugar), palm oil and vegetable oil.
What to feed your toddler instead.
As for all food, the fresher, the purer, the better. Fresh fruit and vegetables can easily be chopped into bite size pieces, and served with cheese cubes or plain yoghurt for a satiating, nutritious snack. Check out how to feed your sugar-free toddler here!
Ready to quit sugar?
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