To be shocked Ella's Kitchen pouches have this much sugar??

[SwizzlesTwizzles]

I was in Sainsbury's today and I got a pack of strawberry yoghurt pouches for my 8 year old, the type meant for school lunch boxes. My 2 year old was in the trolley holding the box and he wanted one for himself. I thought this is a sugary treat really, and I went down the baby food aisle to see if the yoghurt pouches aimed at babies might give a lower sugar alternative. I was really shocked to find that while the own-brand yoghurt pouches aimed at older kids had 5g sugar per pouch, the Ella's Kitchen baby yoghurt pouches were double that! 9g for strawberry, 11g for mango or berry. I couldn't believe it! Seemingly it is possible to make a VERY sweet very palatable fruit yoghurt with half as much sugar as they use, so why don't they reduce the sugar content? It would be very easy to do this! I've had a look online and even bloody Frubes have a lower sugar content than Ella's yoghurt pouches.

I never fed my kids those processed pouches. The high heat that makes them shelf stable eliminates a lot of nutrients, and most of them, even the savoury meals, include high sugar fruit concentrates to make them very palatable. An odd one on a plane journey maybe, as a regular part of their diet, no way.

That is shocking.

I do think babies should just have plain yogurt with a little pure fruit in it like blueberries or grated apple, and no added sweetener beyond the fruit - sugar or other.

I’m sure I read somewhere before that it’s because Ella’s kitchen / other brands of baby foods obviously have a high fruit content and fruit has naturally high sugars. Frubes and other brands probably have minimal fruit compared so have less sugar.

These pouches are ok for every so often and obviously fruit is better for them or natural yogurt but they have no added sugar so the sugars do just come from the fruit

Are you talking about the Ella’s baby fruit yoghurt pouches that are from 6 months? Far as I can see they have no added sugar so all of that is natural sugar from fruit (there is a lot of fruit!)

Also to add, an apple has about 10g of sugar in but it’s natural sugars like those in the baby pouches

No added sugar!! Its naturally occurring sugar. I wish people would stop scaremongering its quite a simple read. And people still dont understand what UPFs are!

When you puree fruit like that you release a lot of free sugars. Its much worse than just giving fresh fruit.

Another misunderstanding and nutrition from social media post

I hope you aren't feeding your children raisins in that case - they can be up to 60% sugar (by weight)

Yeah, fruit contains sugar.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62j0l0gg4go

Yes I’m aware. I was just responding to OP that the sugar is from the fruit whereas in a lot of yoghurts it’s just refined sugar. If it’s 10g pureed fruit it will still have more nutritional value than a yoghurt with just refined sugar from a packet instead.

I have checked and think the sugar is only from the fruit but maybe there is too much fruit. 5 grams is one teaspoon so these all have about two teaspoons worth of sugar in them. Non puréed pieces of fruit would be best.

Another consideration is that it seems not to be live yogurt.

Nope i do not feed my kids much dried fruit either!

Also worth thinking frubes are a lot smaller than Ella’s kitchen pouches too. Think a frube weighs about 30g vs triple the amount of a pouch.

Like I said, fruit and natural yogurt are healthiest but for convenience it’s ok in moderation

DT’s were weaned on jars and pouches - plenty without added sugar. As they were growing up I never restricted the amount of fruit they could have.

Well it’s all just fruit. If you got some apples, strawberries or whatever and blended them down they’d have the same sugar content. Same as innocent smoothies (pure fruit) have more sugar than coke.

If you want low sugar don’t give your kids a load of blended up fruit.

But if you want to avoid processed sugar, the ella’s pouches are still better than frubes or processed yoghurts where it’s all emulsifiers and added sugar. There is more to nutrition than just the sugar %

YABU to be shocked, yes.

What would ‘reducing the sugar content’ look like? Packing it with sweeteners I assume?

Fruity packaged yogurt is inevitably very sugary. Buying your own Greek yogurt and adding whole fruit is not difficult and much better.

Were you looking at added sugar (ingredients list) or the nutrient list? Milk and fruits contain a lot of natural sugars.

Natural or not, it's still too much sugar for food aimed at babies. It's not scaremongering, it's education.

Well, the Sainsbury's yoghurts in my fridge are also just yoghurt and fruit, I suppose the yoghurt content is higher than the fruit content but they don't contain "added" sugar.
Why does it make a difference whether the sugar is from fruit or not? It's still that amount of sugar.

I don’t buy those pouches for my baby, greek yogurt plain or with a little fruit stirred in. I think the savoury ones are disgusting. Babies should eat real, proper food

I have only used these occasionally, as they do come in handy. But they're in no way comparable to normal fruit.

When fruit is broken down/blended up, the sugar transforms into 'free sugars'.

Free sugars are exactly the same as added sugar, honey, etc.

Fruit pouches often contain more than one piece of fruit. If the kid eats the whole thing, that pouch can match or exceed the full recommended amount of sugar they're meant to each each day.

So not great. And a lot of sugar to eat all in one go. You might notice they have a big blood sugar spike, become irritated, not want to sleep, have a big emotional crash etc.

I believe the blending also destroys/breaks down some of the fibre in the fruit. Fibre can lessen the blood sugar spike.

source: www.wcrf.org/about-us/news-and-blogs/a-closer-look-at-fruit-pouches-are-they-healthy-for-children/

Yabu to be shocked that fruit contains sugar.

Your question was why can’t they make it with less sugar. So pp are commenting that yogurt with fruit puree will always be high sugar. You’re right to avoid it. Whole fruit is preferable as you get the good nutrients with less sugar than in a puree.