Speaker 1: It's lunchbox season and that means lunchbox snacks, and aren't
Speaker 1: there millions of them to choose from. We could literally
Speaker 1: spend hours reviewing all of our lunch box friendly snacks,
Speaker 1: but today we've chosen just two of our favorites. But
Speaker 1: just in case you wan't aware, Hi, I'm Leanne.
Speaker 2: Ward and I'm Susie Burrow, and.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nutrition Couch. We are two of Austraya's
Speaker 1: leading dietitians bringing you all the new things on trending
Speaker 1: nutrition news topics, health food product reviews and also our
Speaker 1: listener questions of the week. And this is our new
Speaker 1: mini segment on product reviews, and this week we are
Speaker 1: chatting all things lunch box snacks. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: hand over to you, Susie, to take the reins on
Speaker 1: the first product that we've chosen, which I know for
Speaker 1: you is one of your favorites. Now we must disclose
Speaker 1: this is not a sponsors segment. If we ever do
Speaker 1: a sponsors segment, we will absolutely let you guys know
Speaker 1: and be fully transparent. So Susie's chosen one of her
Speaker 1: favorite products this week, which is the Messy Monkey's Whole
Speaker 1: Grain buttes beautiful.
Speaker 2: So I think, first of all, we will preface this
Speaker 2: by saying that we are not saying by any means
Speaker 2: that processed snacks for children are ever preferable to whole
Speaker 2: foods like our yo playing yogurt or milk, or dairy
Speaker 2: or fruit. But what we are saying is that, of
Speaker 2: course people do buy package snacks for children. Children often
Speaker 2: seek package snacks, and there are a million of them
Speaker 2: out there, and there are certainly ones the end that
Speaker 2: are much better than others. So I thought today, rather
Speaker 2: than perhaps target ones we're not that much of a
Speaker 2: fan of, because so many mums listen and we know
Speaker 2: that you're looking for healthier options, I will really focus
Speaker 2: on two of my favorite ones because I think there's
Speaker 2: plenty of things to talk about with them. So the
Speaker 2: first is a brand you'll all be very familiar with.
Speaker 2: It's the Messy Monkeys Whole Grain Bites. So Messy Monkeys
Speaker 2: have a range of bars and breakfast cereal, but I've
Speaker 2: specifically chosen the whole grain bites, which come in the
Speaker 2: individual packets because inevitably, in my experience, kids are looking
Speaker 2: for things in little packets, even though that's not great
Speaker 2: for the environment. Let's again preface by saying that, and
Speaker 2: I've chosen the ones that are Burger flavor because the
Speaker 2: reason I've done that is that, in my experience, you
Speaker 2: can't just replace a diesel with something boring. It's got
Speaker 2: to be similar in taste, in texture, Otherwise the kids
Speaker 2: just won't eat it and you waste your money. So
Speaker 2: the Messy Monkeys, after several formulations, have come up with
Speaker 2: a whole grain bytes, which nutritionally are pretty goodly in
Speaker 2: and definitely recently when we had the Healthy Food Guide Awards,
Speaker 2: they did very well in voted by several different independent dietitians.
Speaker 2: The ingredients, so they come in a pack I think
Speaker 2: of ten of individual twenty grams serving sizes. Nutritionally, that's
Speaker 2: less than one hundred calories, which is always my reference
Speaker 2: for a package snack food for children. It's got to
Speaker 2: be less than one hundred calories. So these are eighty five,
Speaker 2: which is three hundred and fifty eight killer jaws one
Speaker 2: point seven grams of protein, so they're not getting a
Speaker 2: huge amount of protein, a little bit from the whole grain.
Speaker 2: No gluten, so no detectable gluten in this product, so
Speaker 2: suiting gluten free people less than three percent saturated fat,
Speaker 2: so only three point six grams of total fat one
Speaker 2: less than one gram saturated, so very good. They're minimal
Speaker 2: added sugar is none, so zero point two grams and
Speaker 2: just eleven point five grams of carbohydrate per serve, which
Speaker 2: is a good good amount. Two grams of fiber which
Speaker 2: is not insignificant for children, and sodium seventy nine milligrams. Now,
Speaker 2: people get quite confused with sodium because seventy nine they
Speaker 2: think that sounds high. But we've roughly got about two
Speaker 2: thousand per day to play with, so in the scheme
Speaker 2: of kids snacks, this is pretty low per serve. That's
Speaker 2: being helped by the fact it's a small serving size. Admittedly,
Speaker 2: they're gluten free, wheat free, thirty six percent whole grain,
Speaker 2: which is where our fiber is coming from. They classify
Speaker 2: for a source of fiber, no artificial color, s flavors, preservative,
Speaker 2: and it's a four health star rating. Now, if I
Speaker 2: look at the ingredient mix, the flour mix is whole
Speaker 2: grain sorgum twenty four percent maize, rice whole grain quinoir,
Speaker 2: followed by canola oil, chickpea, fiber, natural flavors, a little
Speaker 2: bit of sugar, salt, vegetable powder for the flavor, cocoa powder,
Speaker 2: a multifier. So again, Leanne, you could look at that
Speaker 2: ingredient list and say, oh, it's got extra oil added,
Speaker 2: it's got extra sugar. But what we know nutritionally is
Speaker 2: is because this is a very small packer. This is
Speaker 2: twenty grand. This is like literally a tablespoon worth of weight.
Speaker 2: Even though there is a little bit added sugar, a
Speaker 2: little bit added salt. In the rand scheme of diet,
Speaker 2: this is very small and certainly it's up the top
Speaker 2: of what's available for children. So I would describe this,
Speaker 2: for want of a better description, one of the best
Speaker 2: of what we would describe is a bad bunch in
Speaker 2: the sense of being a processed food. So the best
Speaker 2: of something that we want to include minimally and the diet.
Speaker 2: But for me Lea, and most importantly, when you give
Speaker 2: the kids these, they eat them and they like them,
Speaker 2: because there's plenty of snacks out there a similar format
Speaker 2: that the kids just won't eat because they don't taste
Speaker 2: grape and they don't taste like what they're expecting from
Speaker 2: a chip. They're crunchy, they're very small. As I've described before,
Speaker 2: with my twins, I won't give them a whole packet
Speaker 2: of these. I'll break it open and give them a
Speaker 2: few at each of their lunchboxes, and they're very happy
Speaker 2: with that. Because they're any little, they don't need to
Speaker 2: be eating buckets of snack food. But in general, I
Speaker 2: think there's about four or five different flavors. There's a
Speaker 2: sour cream, there's a cheese, one, a barbecue, there's several
Speaker 2: salt and vinegar, so it's lots of different flavor profiles.
Speaker 2: They're child friendly, they're in a bright colored bag. They're
Speaker 2: sold in generally the healthy section of supermarket, and I
Speaker 2: often get them when they're on sale because they're often
Speaker 2: coming up as half price, and I'll have a quick
Speaker 2: look now because I haven't actually put it in here
Speaker 2: what they retail at per packet normally, but I tend
Speaker 2: to with all kids snack food, wait until it's on
Speaker 2: sale because it's often half price, and let's be honest,
Speaker 2: we we all like to save a bit of money.
Speaker 2: So I'll buy a few when they're on sale, and
Speaker 2: probably at the moment, there's quite a few on sale
Speaker 2: because they're being marketed at supermarket.
Speaker 1: So I've just had a.
Speaker 2: Little look and they're about five dollars for the box
Speaker 2: at full price for the packet of ten. But as
Speaker 2: I said myself, I tend to buy them when they're
Speaker 2: sort of thirty fifty percent off and get them at
Speaker 2: a much cheaper price point and stock them up because
Speaker 2: you can save a significant amount of money with those.
Speaker 2: Have you had any clients who have used I know
Speaker 2: mostly your clients that are female, that any of their
Speaker 2: kids or anyone you know had any of these to try.
Speaker 1: My sisters definitely use them with her little bub who's
Speaker 1: watch she now probably about fourteen fifteen months, so she
Speaker 1: definitely likes these as well. But as you said, she
Speaker 1: definitely does it where she just puts it into a
Speaker 1: snap block bag and she'll give her three or four
Speaker 1: at a time, and that little even twenty grand pack
Speaker 1: at how small it is, will last her sort of
Speaker 1: three or four days. And that's the thing I think
Speaker 1: a lot of parents and so giving kids snack foods
Speaker 1: and not just one packet, like it's routine to open
Speaker 1: a lunch box. When I used to work as a
Speaker 1: public house nutrition a SUSI, we used to do lunch
Speaker 1: box audits of the daycare and the primary school, and
Speaker 1: you would easily like you'd open a lunch box up
Speaker 1: and you'd see three, four, five, six package snacks in
Speaker 1: those lunch boxes. So I really do like your sort
Speaker 1: of formula of opening a packet and sort of splitting
Speaker 1: it up either between kids or just splitting it up,
Speaker 1: you know, over a couple of days for the one child,
Speaker 1: because as you said, like it is it is a
Speaker 1: processed food. Is the better of a bad bunch, but
Speaker 1: it is, you know, nutritionally, is actually quite strong. And
Speaker 1: I like the fact that there's two grams of fiber
Speaker 1: in a small packet as well. That's actually quite a
Speaker 1: lot of fiber for twenty grams, and we're not getting
Speaker 1: in a whole bulk of that. They're not adding in
Speaker 1: a ton of extra probotic fibers or it's not like
Speaker 1: it's sort of artificial type of fiber either. It's really
Speaker 1: the fibers coming from the fact that they've got a
Speaker 1: good blend of whole grain flour mixes plus the chickpea
Speaker 1: fiber in there as well, which is which is ideal
Speaker 1: because a lot of kids they're just not simply eating
Speaker 1: enough veggies, which means that they're not getting in enough
Speaker 1: fiber as well. So not the way saying you should
Speaker 1: definitely get your fiber from package products, but it is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a benefit of something like these
Speaker 1: snacks to be whole grain based and contain a little
Speaker 1: bit of fibers. So I think the brand overall is
Speaker 1: quite good, and it does market it under Freedom Foods,
Speaker 1: isn't it, which we know is quite a strong brand
Speaker 1: health wise for a lot of their products. So good
Speaker 1: to see that they've come up with something that's, you know,
Speaker 1: somewhat nutritionally high compared to other products in that market,
Speaker 1: and also appeals to kids as well.
Speaker 2: I can't agree more with young kids. I see it
Speaker 2: all the time that parents will pack so many carbohydrate
Speaker 2: based snacks for trips to the park, and we're talking
Speaker 2: two and three year olds going through a packet. There's
Speaker 2: just way too much for a packet for little kids.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't give kids a whole packet of snack food
Speaker 2: like this until they're eight or ten years of age,
Speaker 2: which means that two and three year olds need just
Speaker 2: a few of these mixed in with their cut up
Speaker 2: vegetables and cut up fruit. So that's a really good
Speaker 2: take home message. The other thing I'll say about a
Speaker 2: lot of these products is You've got to check because
Speaker 2: some do have added MSG, which we've spoken about previously,
Speaker 2: additive six to one, and even though they may look healthy,
Speaker 2: some of the pea snaps and flavored products still contain
Speaker 2: it in kids snacks. So one of the reasons I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of this Messy Monkey's brand as a whole
Speaker 2: is that they're only using natural flavors, so really check that.
Speaker 2: You definitely don't want to see flavor enhancers in any
Speaker 2: kid's snack food in general. So that's a big reason
Speaker 2: that I'm not a big fan of some of the
Speaker 2: flavored packets of biscuits and sneak pea snaps that are
Speaker 2: out there at the moment. So the other product I've chosen, Leanne,
Speaker 2: is actually a rice based snack. Now, as a rule
Speaker 2: of thumb, historically myself, as a dietitian, I don't like
Speaker 2: rice based snacks. And the reason I don't like them
Speaker 2: is that it's often the most highest glycemic index carbohydrate
Speaker 2: we can find in rice crackers in particular, So as
Speaker 2: a reference, ten rice crackers is the equivalent of about
Speaker 2: two slices of bread worth of carbohydrate, and it's really
Speaker 2: rapidly digested carbohydrate, and they're often historically being flavored also
Speaker 2: with MSG. But there is a lot of kids rice
Speaker 2: snacks out there, and this one we've chosen today, the
Speaker 2: sun Rice Mini Bites, is one of the ones that
Speaker 2: I don't mind actually compared to the ones we've often
Speaker 2: had out there, because it's made from a whole grain
Speaker 2: brown rice. We know that white rice is a refined grain,
Speaker 2: very high gied, lacks the nutritional density of brown rice,
Speaker 2: so these are a whole grain brown rice eighty five percent.
Speaker 2: The next ingredient ones I've chosen the salt and vinegar,
Speaker 2: but there is actually plain as well, which are eliminating
Speaker 2: some of these flavors that come with it. The next
Speaker 2: ingredients vegetable oil, seasoning with some molded extra and food acid, salt, sugar,
Speaker 2: mineral salts, yeste extra, It may starch, vegetable oil. If
Speaker 2: you wanted to get rid of all of that, you
Speaker 2: could choose the plain blue packet, so there's definitely options
Speaker 2: for that. Again, it's a twenty gram pack size, which
Speaker 2: comes in at less than that one hundred calorie per
Speaker 2: serve or three fifty six kilogels one and a half
Speaker 2: grams of protein, which is coming from that brown rice
Speaker 2: saturated fat. Very low, again, very similar to the Messi
Speaker 2: monkeys at point zero three per serve, fourteen point five
Speaker 2: grams of carbohydrate, minimal sugars zero point four grams wouldn't
Speaker 2: even count, not as much dietary fiber as the whole
Speaker 2: grain variety of Messi monkeys at less than a gram.
Speaker 2: I would generally like the kids snack food to have
Speaker 2: at least two three of either protein or dietary fiber.
Speaker 2: So this one's coming in a little bit low there.
Speaker 2: But it's a flavored brown rice product, which is pretty
Speaker 2: innocent and again in my experience, a product the kids
Speaker 2: are likely to eat and a million times better than
Speaker 2: a rice cracker because of that brown rice base. So yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think there's flavored options and plain options to mean,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to get rid of some of those
Speaker 2: colors and things from that, you'd have a pretty plain
Speaker 2: snack that's got a bit of flavor to it and
Speaker 2: the kids are likely to accept.
Speaker 1: And I think overall, just looking at the quantity per serving,
Speaker 1: even though the twenty grand packet is quite small. You know,
Speaker 1: you got fourteen and a half grams of carbohydrate in
Speaker 1: the serving, so that's equivalent to about a slice of bread.
Speaker 1: And so I think when parents are really adding in
Speaker 1: a couple of these into the lunch boxes, or they're
Speaker 1: giving the kids a couple of these packaged snack products
Speaker 1: at the park and they're getting home and expecting a
Speaker 1: child to eat a lunch or a dinner, and the
Speaker 1: kid's full, this is probably the reason because a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, children are just over consuming carbohydrates at
Speaker 1: snack times. So that's why your formula from the podcast
Speaker 1: on Sunday was really really helpful in terms of just
Speaker 1: you know, making sure they're getting in some veggies and
Speaker 1: some protein and some you know, salads and a piece
Speaker 1: of fruit or something versus just too many of these
Speaker 1: packaged products, which we know parents use more for convenience
Speaker 1: but also because kids obviously really like them. So I
Speaker 1: do think that that's an easy way to compare it.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of a little packet of this
Speaker 1: is equivalent to about a slice of bread, which I
Speaker 1: think for parents to understand that is actually quite a
Speaker 1: powerful marketing message as well. So I do like your
Speaker 1: idea of sort of splitting it up and not giving
Speaker 1: them a whole packet, particularly if they're a younger child,
Speaker 1: you know, three, four, five, six years old as well. Well.
Speaker 1: I do like that the sun rice ones are Australian
Speaker 1: based rice because I think that that's an important concept.
Speaker 1: And I've got a little bit off tangent, but stay
Speaker 1: with me, Susie. A lot of times, when you know
Speaker 1: a lot of pregnant ladies say to me, oh, can
Speaker 1: I have protein powder? If it's a vegan based proteins,
Speaker 1: they just be very very careful with brown rice protein
Speaker 1: because a lot of the times we don't know where
Speaker 1: the rice is grown, and a lot of times it's
Speaker 1: in countries that are not Australia, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of harmful minerals and that sort of thing
Speaker 1: in the soil, particularly if you know the brown rice
Speaker 1: is coming from somewhere in Asia or something like that.
Speaker 1: So very much the recommendations for like protein powder and
Speaker 1: pregnancy are and no, go with a brown rice type protein.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine it's very much the same. You know,
Speaker 1: you would want the rice in a kid's based product,
Speaker 1: you would want to know where that's coming from or
Speaker 1: where that's grown, because there are a lot of harmful
Speaker 1: chemicals in the ground if it's not sort of an
Speaker 1: austrain based product. So for me, one of the big
Speaker 1: props is is that it is they're sourcing the rice
Speaker 1: from Australia, so I think that that's very helpful in
Speaker 1: a kids based product.
Speaker 2: That's a really good tip. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people will find that really really interesting and just something.
Speaker 2: I will just track down the price of these per packet.
Speaker 2: But the other thing I wanted to mention was looking
Speaker 2: at the sodium of the rice, the flavored rice variety.
Speaker 2: So these are currently on sale again, they're usually five
Speaker 2: dollars per pack of eight, and they're half prices. I
Speaker 2: said to get it at the moment at Wally. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I would definitely seek them out when they're on sale.
Speaker 2: But what I will say is that the flavored varieties,
Speaker 2: the sodium per undergrams is over six hundred, which is
Speaker 2: actually quite high. We normally recommend snack food or any
Speaker 2: foods to be less than about three hundred milligrams per hundred.
Speaker 2: Now it's kind of saved with the serving size being
Speaker 2: quite small, but just be mindful there is a little
Speaker 2: bit of added salt that does get sort of slip
Speaker 2: into these products to give them some flavor. And the
Speaker 2: Messy Monkeys is a little bit lower compared to the
Speaker 2: brown rice sun rice rice snacks, so that is something
Speaker 2: to be aware of. But the other thing I wanted
Speaker 2: just to mention before we wrap it uply and is
Speaker 2: we've spoken before on podcasts about the addition of vegetable
Speaker 2: oils in the food supply, and if you looked at
Speaker 2: these nutritional labels, that's quite high on there. It's not ideal,
Speaker 2: but as we've mentioned, because it's small serve, that's actually
Speaker 2: quite little, and if it's a loafat product as these are,
Speaker 2: it's not as much cause for concern. So yes, I'm
Speaker 2: hearing what you're saying when you see vegetable oil on
Speaker 2: the label, But when you see a product, for example,
Speaker 2: that's eighty five percent whole grain brown rice, it means
Speaker 2: that overall the amounts of oils and little bits of
Speaker 2: sugar and salt slipping it are actually quite small, So
Speaker 2: it's no need for concerning a relatively low fat food.
Speaker 1: I definitely think these are, as you keep saying, the
Speaker 1: better options if you were if you were going to
Speaker 1: get a packaged product for children as well, but I
Speaker 1: really again so probably at third time, like the idea
Speaker 1: of splitting up and not sort of offering these sorts
Speaker 1: of things every single day and making it more like
Speaker 1: a treat versus something that you see two or three
Speaker 1: portions of in a lunch box every single day. So
Speaker 1: I will end in that with that sort of tip
Speaker 1: where these are sort of, even though they're better products,
Speaker 1: that we still want to consider them as more of
Speaker 1: like a treat and really do focus on the serving
Speaker 1: of you know, one or two servings of calcium every
Speaker 1: single day, one or two servings of fruit, one or
Speaker 1: two servings of vegetables every single day. And if your
Speaker 1: kids are getting home and they're too full for the
Speaker 1: main meal or they're not eating a proper dinner or
Speaker 1: proper lunch, probably because you're overfeeding them from a snack
Speaker 1: based perspective. All as zzi well, that wraps us up
Speaker 1: for our many little new product segment of the week.
Speaker 1: So if you guys haven't subscribed you already, please do
Speaker 1: so to the Nutrition Couch podcast and we're on our
Speaker 1: Facebook and our Instagram socials. We're at the Nutrition Couch
Speaker 1: Podcast and we will catch you guys next Sunday for
Speaker 1: our brand new episode drop. And don't forget the mini
Speaker 1: episod jops just like this one, happen on a Wednesday
Speaker 1: now as well as You're getting a double dose of
Speaker 1: Sissy and I twice a week from here on out,
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 2: We look forward to seeing your lunchboxes in the next
Speaker 2: few weeks.