Why is it so difficult to find healthy foods for children which aren’t laced with sugar, oils, fats and chemicals?
As they are targeted at children, of course they need to taste good, but natural foods taste just as amazing as artificial ones – but the problem is not many food companies who specialise in children’s snacks want to optimise on this. Instead, they’re looking for a cheaper, anti-real-food alternative.
Such a fact is well-known – when parents buy their children food products, they can read the packet and see that there’s not a whole lot of good in it – yet they pop them in their shopping trolley and ignore the consequences (like children with a sugar high, kids never feeling satisfied, and growing up to think healthy foods which actually taste of real food taste, well, icky).
So if you’re a parent looking for a healthy snack for their children but don’t know where to look, see these some of the best and worst, and see if you can make the smarter change today!
The Best
Crazy Jack’s Organic
These guys make some of the nicest dried fruit ranges around, and come in handy pouches so that you can pack them nicely into a lunch box. All organic and naturally sweet, your children can try a whole new range of fruits beyond just raisins and apricots with Crazy Jack’s, including exciting good-for-you figs, dates and prunes!
Tropical Wholefoods snack bars
Oaty and delicious, Tropical Wholefoods’ snack bars are full of natural energy from the oats, which will help keep your child fuller for longer in the run up to lunchtime. Along with apricots, raising and barley flakes, your child can enjoy a sweet on-the-go snack with very little sugar involved.
Yummy Health
Yummy Health snack bars are sort of like protein bars for kids, sampling out sugar with sweeteners and including lovely protein-packed ingredients like natural almond butter, milled flaxseeds and coconut. If you have a particularly active child, these snack bars are excellent for keeping them from reaching the biscuit tin once they come home after a tiring day.
The Worst
Fruit Shredz
Much like Fruit Winders (which are just full of sugar), Fruit Shredz are comprised mainly of sugar, sugar and more sugar thanks to the fruit juice concentrates. Although organic, they’re still full of empty calories with none of the fibrous benefits of real, solid fruit.
Bitsy’s Brain Food
This range is known as ‘brain food’ because children can ‘learn through the fun number shapes in the cereal’, and not because their breakfast cereals are healthy.
They’re tried to pull the wool over your eyes by stating the amount of wholegrains in their products, that they have no GMOs, and giving their products nice healthy-sounding names like ‘Carrot & Raisin’, you’d think these were indeed healthy. Turns out not so much – with up to 4 teaspoons of sugar per small bowl, this is food for an over-active brain, but not one which will be full of essential nutrients.
My Wellbeing Journal 