Speaker 1: Are you someone that loves a good protein ball or
Speaker 1: a snack ball? Do you make your own? Maybe you
Speaker 1: buy them from the supermarket. Now, snackballs can be a
Speaker 1: quick and convenient source of nutrition, but we probably need
Speaker 1: to be weary as some are far better than others.
Speaker 1: On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we take a
Speaker 1: closer look at three popular snack balls in Aussie's supermarkets. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Leanne Wood and I'm Sizzy Burrow and a still
Speaker 1: of austrays leading dieticians who specialize in evidence based nutrition.
Speaker 1: We bring you the Nutrition Couch product with you a
Speaker 1: weekly chat on new products and old favorites that you
Speaker 1: can find at the supermarket. So I would say Zuzie
Speaker 1: that I'm overall not a big snackball person. I don't
Speaker 1: find them feeling, but on a car trip or if
Speaker 1: I'm traveling on a plane, I will absolutely load up
Speaker 1: on them. Is your family a snackball type of family?
Speaker 1: Do you have them on the car trips on the
Speaker 1: plane trips?
Speaker 2: I think what you said in the beginning really sums
Speaker 2: it up to me. Their energy balls, and that's a
Speaker 2: great way to describe them. I am not a big
Speaker 2: fan of them, myself. I don't love dried fruit, and
Speaker 2: often they do have a dried fruit base, and as such,
Speaker 2: I've never really given them to my boys, but as
Speaker 2: a sports dietician, I did use them frequently as a
Speaker 2: quick energy food on the go. Certainly I use them
Speaker 2: to make my lunchboxes on Instagram look pretty because they
Speaker 2: can be quite nice and round. But no, and definitely
Speaker 2: online when we post recipes for them, they do really well.
Speaker 2: But no, do I buy them? No, And I'm not
Speaker 2: a big fan and I but I've got some clientsy
Speaker 2: like them and I as we know, there's been an
Speaker 2: increasing number in supermarkets, which is why we thought we
Speaker 2: would cover them today. But yeah, take what you will.
Speaker 2: If the dieticians aren't buying them, that's probably a little
Speaker 2: bit of a reason to take notice of. Starting point.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so the first one I've got I always loved
Speaker 1: to include a little health halo for a sushi. And
Speaker 1: the first one is the Tasty Brands. So it's available
Speaker 1: at wools only, and it's the Tasty Fruit and Veggie
Speaker 1: whole food balls with mango and carrot. So you would
Speaker 1: take one look at the front of packaging and go great,
Speaker 1: I'm going to grab that work it in the jolley
Speaker 1: and the kids are set. So they're now added sugar,
Speaker 1: they're gluten free, and they're vegan. But let's take a
Speaker 1: closer look at the ingredient list. So the first ingredient
Speaker 1: is apple pure concentrate at seventy seven percent, So already
Speaker 1: we know that that's going to be a high proportion
Speaker 1: of sugar because the concentrate has more sugar than if
Speaker 1: it was like you munching into a whole apple. Second
Speaker 1: ingredient in some flower seed butter. So we've got some nice,
Speaker 1: healthy fats, followed by coconut, two percent dried carrot. For
Speaker 1: something that's marketed as a fruit and veggie ball, I'm
Speaker 1: very disappointed that there's only two percent dried carrot. There's
Speaker 1: freeze dried manga one percent and a hint of natural flavor. So,
Speaker 1: considering these are called mango and coconut fruit and veggie balls,
Speaker 1: we have two percent carrot and one percent mango. If
Speaker 1: that's not a health halo, Susie, I honestly don't know
Speaker 1: what is. Absolutely, so I'm a little disappointed. Just based
Speaker 1: on the ingredient list. These are three dollars fifty for
Speaker 1: sixty grams, so I think there's about six balls in there,
Speaker 1: so they're sort of, you know, fifty cents of ball
Speaker 1: or something, So they're not relatively inexpensive, but they're not
Speaker 1: something that's too high end either. So looking at the
Speaker 1: nutrition information panel, so we've got perse serving five hundred
Speaker 1: killer dules in terms of energy, one point two grams
Speaker 1: of protein, so you right, they're not protein balls. They
Speaker 1: absolutely energy balls. Three point nine grams of fat predominantly
Speaker 1: coming from our some flower seed butter in our coconut.
Speaker 1: We have nineteen point six grams of carbohydrate, with twelve
Speaker 1: point seven grams being sugars, one point two grams of fiber,
Speaker 1: and very minimal sodium six milligrams. So nutritionally they are
Speaker 1: absolutely energy balls. The bulk of the calories is coming
Speaker 1: from carbohydrates and sugar. Yes, the sugar is natural, it's
Speaker 1: not quote unquote process white sugar, but it's heavily you know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fruit sugar. So these are something
Speaker 1: that you would use for a quick energy hit. These
Speaker 1: for me wouldn't be a substantial afternoon snack to keep
Speaker 1: my clients going until, you know, until dinner time, because
Speaker 1: you the body's going to absorb that energy so quickly
Speaker 1: and it's going to be like what, now, give me more.
Speaker 1: So pairing these with maybe something like a boiled egg
Speaker 1: or a handful of nuts or something to sort of
Speaker 1: slow down the digestion of the carbohydrate and the sugar
Speaker 1: might be a good option. But I think for the
Speaker 1: majority of peace, these aren't I don't know, Susie, maybe five
Speaker 1: out of ten, six out of ten. That's what they
Speaker 1: sort of get from me. They're not a standout and
Speaker 1: they absolutely don't you know, they don't contain what they
Speaker 1: promise on the front of package label. Really well.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think that the numbers are wrong
Speaker 2: because it says six serves per pack, but that it's
Speaker 2: only sixty grams the entire bag. So I think that
Speaker 2: they're a serve must be three balls. They must weigh
Speaker 2: ten grams each. So because it's only sixty gram that bag,
Speaker 2: so there'd only be two balls and if they were
Speaker 2: thirty grams each, So that's an inaccuracy on.
Speaker 1: Them, Like, oh, you're right, yeah, six servings per pack, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think it must be three balls a serve.
Speaker 2: Am I right, ten grams each of the ball. So
Speaker 2: that's sort of just over one hundred calories, so you know,
Speaker 2: a country calories snack's quite light. But I love a
Speaker 2: snack to have protein. So if you know twelve grams
Speaker 2: of concentrated sugars, you know some dried fruit, for me
Speaker 2: to give that as a balanced snack, I would have
Speaker 2: to add them protein in. So it would be pretty
Speaker 2: tricky to get the protein in without adding more fash
Speaker 2: just thinking how I would potentially do it, Like, it's
Speaker 2: a bit tricky to balance out as a snack.
Speaker 1: Isn't it. I do it with a boiled egg maybe,
Speaker 1: but it's a bit odd.
Speaker 2: Two if you light round stuff, oval shapes, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: how I would do it. If you love them. I
Speaker 2: would use two or three in a serve in a
Speaker 2: mixed lunchbox. But you would as a snack for morning
Speaker 2: or afternoon tea, you'd have to add the protein back in, which, yeah,
Speaker 2: your best option would be a boiled egg.
Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, yeah, they're just not going to tie
Speaker 1: you over. There's no substance there.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they taste good, but it is
Speaker 2: misleading because they've got no veggies in.
Speaker 1: Them, and even the mango like, there's one percent mango like,
Speaker 1: it's mostly apple pure. Their market is mango and coconut balls.
Speaker 1: It's seventy seven percent apple and one percent mango. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that in itself, I wouldn't buy it on
Speaker 1: principle because they're misleading their consumers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm with you all the way. I think
Speaker 2: the only thing that I quite like on the label
Speaker 2: is sun fout Sea buther like that's giving a nice
Speaker 2: fat profile, but then you're teaming it with coconuts. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm with you one hundred percent. It wouldn't be my
Speaker 2: go to, And I think they need to fix the
Speaker 2: label so tasty. If anyone's listening, your labeling's wrong, all right.
Speaker 1: So the second product I have chosen is more of
Speaker 1: what I would term a protein ball, So it is
Speaker 1: the balance peanut energy protein ball. So this one's guten free,
Speaker 1: which is great for all of our celiacs. And is
Speaker 1: it vegan as well? No, it's not. It's got way
Speaker 1: protein and it's not vegan apologies, it does contain dairy.
Speaker 2: They do have vegan ones. So about Bounce, I've got
Speaker 2: a range of vegan balls, which is good to know.
Speaker 1: So top ingredient is peanuts twenty nine percent, followed by
Speaker 1: brown rice, starch, whey protein blend which adds the bulk
Speaker 1: of our protein in there. It's got grape juice I
Speaker 1: imagine as a bit of a sweetener. It's got sesame seeds, water,
Speaker 1: tapiocre starch, natural flavors, sea salt, some mineral salt being
Speaker 1: calcium carbonate, and some sunflower Ethosen contains sesame seeds, peanuts,
Speaker 1: and milk as our allergens, and his process on the
Speaker 1: same line as sweeping treenuts and eggs and made from
Speaker 1: eleven percent of Straian ingredients. So definitely not a ossie
Speaker 1: home grown ingredient list that. Look at the serving size,
Speaker 1: it's forty nine gram so one ball in one packet
Speaker 1: is one serve. They are two dollars at Coals in
Speaker 1: three point fifty at wal worse at the time of recording,
Speaker 1: so I think Coals might have a bit of a
Speaker 1: sale on at the moment, which is good. So definitely
Speaker 1: for one ball, I would be trying to get these
Speaker 1: on sale if I were to buy them. So per serve.
Speaker 1: Energy wise, they are eight hundred and eighty kilodules, so
Speaker 1: what's that roughly so over two hundred calories, so quite
Speaker 1: a good energy you know, packs a punch in terms
Speaker 1: of energy, So a good, well rounded snack, I would say.
Speaker 1: But if you're not someone that's going to eat this
Speaker 1: and find it filling, if you need to pair it
Speaker 1: with something else, it is quite a high energy snack.
Speaker 1: Fourteen point three grams of protein, which I think is
Speaker 1: wonderful in a snack. Eight point eight grams are fat,
Speaker 1: with only one point five of that being saturated, so
Speaker 1: a good fat profile. There seventeen grams of carbohydrate twelve
Speaker 1: point five coming from the sugars. That's weird. The dietary
Speaker 1: fibers is one hundred and forty four milligrams, so that's
Speaker 1: obviously incorrect.
Speaker 2: It's one point five. I've just looked it up online.
Speaker 2: It's one point five grams of dietary fiber. It's just
Speaker 2: a misprint, i'd say, on the Willies or coal site.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so one point five grams of five Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's probably a little bit too low with ideally
Speaker 1: like that a bit higher. And one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: seven billigrams of sodium, so not know, nothing, not insignificant,
Speaker 1: but still you know, quite small in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things, So I like this for the higher protein
Speaker 1: profile of it. SUSI. It's got to you serve carbohydrate,
Speaker 1: and they're seventeen grams of carbohydrate. I think it's a
Speaker 1: quick and easy thing. I'd probably i'd recommended this for
Speaker 1: my clients. Sometimes I travel a lot that always need
Speaker 1: just a little quick snack in their handbag to tie
Speaker 1: them over between meals. But it's not what I would
Speaker 1: call volume dens. If you're somebody that genuinely feels quite
Speaker 1: hungry during the day, it's probably not something that I
Speaker 1: would recommend, but I don't mind it. I think the
Speaker 1: ingredients list is pretty okay. I would turn this with
Speaker 1: maybe some Veggi sticks to add a bit of bulk
Speaker 1: and fullness to it. I don't mind them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like them too. I like Bounce. They do
Speaker 2: some great products. But you do have to really take
Speaker 2: a close look at the labels. There's a great difference
Speaker 2: in protein levels. It is a quite small product. When
Speaker 2: you open it at two hundred and twenty cow, they're
Speaker 2: only quite little, like I want to say, not a
Speaker 2: massive you know what I mean. For the calorie density, it's.
Speaker 1: Not the size of a golf ball, probably smaller.
Speaker 2: I do use them and quite like them one night
Speaker 2: because they're gluten free, and so when you're looking for
Speaker 2: gluten free products that can be really useful, and that
Speaker 2: load of protein at fourteen grams is really strong, I
Speaker 2: should say that you're not going to get a peanut
Speaker 2: based product with a lot of Austraian peanuts. We just
Speaker 2: don't grow that many peanuts here in Australia, so that's
Speaker 2: not unexpected.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I use them the air, but I use them with
Speaker 2: active people, you know, someone of the using with teenagers
Speaker 2: or athletes, you know, as a cycling snack on the bike.
Speaker 2: They're getting carbohydrate. So do I recommend it for my
Speaker 2: average female No, because it's one hundred and twenty cow.
Speaker 2: They eat them really quickly. They're not overly filling in
Speaker 2: that context of someone who needs a lot of volume,
Speaker 2: but they've got a place in dietary planning. And if
Speaker 2: you've got high energy demands or really struggle with protein
Speaker 2: and do need gluten free snacks, you know that the
Speaker 2: overall profile for a relatively high calorie product is strong.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those things if you're traveling and
Speaker 2: needed a substantial routine hit on the run. It'd be
Speaker 2: quite a smart product because you'd be sort of full
Speaker 2: from it. Have it with a coffee, you'd be full,
Speaker 2: and great for gluten free people. So absolutely I do
Speaker 2: use bouts and this is one of my preferred varieties.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: The other one I like is the coconut Maceademia. But
Speaker 2: do check the protein amounts because some of them are
Speaker 2: quite low and hence don't have that added bonus.
Speaker 1: Definitely, yeah, yeah, So I think you know gold Stars.
Speaker 2: From us and I only buy them on sale two
Speaker 2: dollars and the two dollars gold Stars from the Nutrition Couch.
Speaker 1: For the right type of person, I think. And then
Speaker 1: the last product we've got today, Susie, is one that
Speaker 1: I've seen quite a lot just on sale at the
Speaker 1: end of the aisle. They've got them there quite a lot,
Speaker 1: and I've picked them up a few times and I'm
Speaker 1: always disappointed every time. So I'll show you why. They're
Speaker 1: the Uncle Toby's Peanut and Strawberry oat balls. They retail
Speaker 1: it calls for two dollars fifteen and they're six balls
Speaker 1: in there, so they're relatively you know, they're probably the
Speaker 1: cheapest one out of the three that we've reviewed today,
Speaker 1: and a serving size is forty two grams, so the
Speaker 1: serving size is three, so it's half the packet. So
Speaker 1: when we look at the ingredient list, we start with
Speaker 1: date paste, followed by peanut butter, followed by apple juice concentrate.
Speaker 1: Then we've got some oats, some pear pure concentrates, some
Speaker 1: coconut peanuts, strawberry pure, elderberry juice concentrate, salt food acid,
Speaker 1: and then we've got our allergens listed as gluten and
Speaker 1: peanuts and also may contain tree nuts and lupin. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of concentrated sugars going in there. Are
Speaker 1: they natural? Are they from fruit? Yes, but there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of concentrated sugars. The date paste, the apple
Speaker 1: juice concentrate, the pear pure concentrate, the strawberry pure, the
Speaker 1: elderberry juice concentrate. So looking at the nutrition label per
Speaker 1: surface for three balls, we've got seven hundred and five kilojeels,
Speaker 1: three point five grams of protein, seven grams of total
Speaker 1: fat with two point five grams being saturated, twenty one
Speaker 1: point two grams of carbs, with fifteen point six grams
Speaker 1: being sugar. That's a high sugar product. Like it's a
Speaker 1: lot of sugar for three small balls, and these balls
Speaker 1: are a lot smaller. Yeah, I think three of these
Speaker 1: would probably be equivalent to the size of the balance ball.
Speaker 1: Three point two grams of dietary fiber, So pretty good
Speaker 1: in terms of dietary fiber compared to the other ones,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of fruit going in there and
Speaker 1: thirty seven milligrams of sodium, which is very, very low.
Speaker 1: So I don't love these because I feel like that
Speaker 1: is a high sugar product, and I just feel like
Speaker 1: you're not going to get any sustenance from it, and
Speaker 1: you're just going to have sort of a bigger blood
Speaker 1: sugar spike. It's going to come crashing back down again,
Speaker 1: and you're going to sort of want more sugar or
Speaker 1: more food within probably about a good hour. I just
Speaker 1: don't feel like this is going to be feeling or sustaining.
Speaker 1: So I would probably only be using these for athletes
Speaker 1: or somebody that needs really quick energy, you know, for
Speaker 1: some weight gain or something like that. This definitely would
Speaker 1: be my product if the goal was fat loss or
Speaker 1: honestly even health. I just don't think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of quality, nutritious ingredients in here.
Speaker 2: When they came out, I was so disappointed because I
Speaker 2: was so excited they had a new product like this,
Speaker 2: and when I looked at the nutritional I've been like,
Speaker 2: you have picked them up several times and then put
Speaker 2: them back just because that load of sugar seems so high.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, are they better than a
Speaker 2: chocolate bar? Is a sweet hit? Yes, but they're not
Speaker 2: really offering the protein that we like as a snack.
Speaker 2: There's a bit of fiber, but you know, nothing blowing out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that they're that middle ground. Like
Speaker 2: if I was rating them, say, i'd give the bout,
Speaker 2: say three and a half four out of five. I'd
Speaker 2: give the tasties one or two, and i'd give these
Speaker 2: probably three. It's kind of middle ground. They're not the
Speaker 2: worst thing in the supermarket. They're not the best. There's
Speaker 2: not any standard nutritional qualities in them. I don't you know.
Speaker 2: You can't send them to school because of the nutbase.
Speaker 2: So that's the other issue, Like we're always looking for
Speaker 2: lunch box friendly snacks that have protein, so you can't
Speaker 2: send them to school, So where would they fit even
Speaker 2: I'm not going to give my kids three balls in
Speaker 2: the afternoon. I'm not going to give it to my
Speaker 2: adult clients with fifteen grams sugar. So I just have
Speaker 2: difficulty placing them in a diet. Really, are they better,
Speaker 2: as I said, than picking up a chocolate bar in
Speaker 2: a store and having them in the car, Yeah, one
Speaker 2: hundred percent, But certainly they're not on my routine shopping
Speaker 2: list and there's better snap products out there. And it's
Speaker 2: a difficult one because they've got to be able to
Speaker 2: be used in context in a diet, and they don't
Speaker 2: fit in any of my modeling. You know, they're not
Speaker 2: gluten free or they're not not free, so they're not
Speaker 2: something that I go to regularly with my clients. And
Speaker 2: they're not bad, there's just nothing standout that would make
Speaker 2: me recommend them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm agree, all right, Souzie. Well, that brings us
Speaker 1: to the end of the Nutrition Couch product with you
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Speaker 2: I like that promise. Yes, have a good week. People
Speaker 2: will see you very soon.