Bought vs homemade: Kids’ hidden vege snacks

Adding veges to baking is one way to up kids’ daily fruit and vege intake, but do bought vege snacks do the trick?

Bought

Mother Earth Vege Fruit Sticks Spinach, Apple, Blueberry & Banana

Ingredients: Wheat flour, filling (42%)(spinach puree (30%), concentrated apple puree (22%), blueberry puree (4%), banana puree (3%), concentrated elderberry juice, glucose syrup, sugar, humectant, wheat fibre, natural flavours, maltodextrin, golden syrup, invert sugar, brown sugar, sugar, desiccated coconut, vegetable fibre, raising agents, butter, sunflower oil, emulsifier, natural flavour, salt, wheat bran, wheatgerm, natural colour (annatto).

vs

Homemade

Healthy Food Guide Finlay & Zoe’s chocolate courgette muffins

Ingredients: flour, trim milk, courgette, chocolate chips, sugar, reduced-fat spread, egg, cocoa powder, baking powder.

Both our homemade and bought examples are sweet treats. The addition of veges in the ingredients doesn’t change that fact.

Putting veges into foods where we wouldn’t usually find them can increase the range of nutrients and add moisture or texture to baking. But think about the amount of veges added and what else the kids are getting.

A Mother Earth Vege Fruit Stick is one-third lighter than the Healthy Food Guide courgette and chocolate muffin, yet contains similar kilojoules and sugars. While our muffins have more protein and fat and fewer carbs and fibre, these are all in quite small amounts. Both the sticks and the muffins are small serves, and likely to be just one component of your child’s snack.

These are sweet treats and are fine treated accordingly. For the same energy, the Healthy Food Guide muffins are a good choice because they’re weightier and 60 per cent cheaper, although the Mother Earth Vege Fruit Sticks may be more convenient.