If you grew up in some parts of Europe or travel there regularly, you may have seen that's breakfast biscuits can be relatively common as a way to start the day with a hot drink. Now, a few years ago back in Australia, we started to see breakfast biscuits in supermarkets as well, and they're marketed as a quick, easy and healthy breakfast option. So is it actually possible that a sweet biscuit could be part of a healthy start
to the day. Hi, I'm Susie Burrows and I'm Lean Wood, and as two of Australia's leading dieticians who specialize in evidence based nutrition, we bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly chat on new products and old favors that
you can find in supermarkets. Now, Leanne, I've got an interesting story about breakfast biscuits because I've mentioned before on the potty that I lived with Italians when I was at university Northern Italians, and it was absolutely normal for Nonna to start the day with a cup of tea before even her coffee, and she would buy Italian biscuit
from the Italian delis. They're down in Wollongong and there's quite a lot of Italians down there, and so she will routinely go to the local sort of Italian grosser and stock up on breakfast biscuits and down several to start the day. And I certainly joined her when I was eighteen nineteen at university. Now I am generally not a fan of the ones in supermarket, and I'm going to take a close look at a couple of them
a day. But I do know that Europeans routinely have this as they start of the day, and they start sort of with that, and then they'll go to a hot meal in the day. What do you think have you seen it much in your practice or with people before, sort of having piscotti or biscuits as a breakfast.
Not so much piscotti, but I do I do haven't had a couple of clients who are using these more so, and particularly if I've ever had clients with young sort of young teenagers, they send them to school with these things because you know, the kids are like, oh, I'm not hungry, but they're like, we should eat something or
take something with you. So I do find a lot of parents use this for teenagers who don't want well aren't hungry, or maybe it's not coolty breakfast, whatever the reason, they do sort of use these, But I must be honest, I have used these while traveling a few times, just a something quick and easy to have in my handbag if I'm overseas and I'm sort of traveling around, particularly when I travel through parts of Asia, and I just think it's very traditional in Asian cuisine to have more
like you know, the meat and the veggie in the noodle for breakfast. And I'm very much like a I like a light of sort of breakfast. If I'm not going to have my eggs on toast or something, I would rather prefer something like a poroje or a cereal
or something. So I just can't sort of stomach meat and veggie at that sort of time in the morning, so I do if I've traveled through parts of Asia, I have sort of just stashed these in my handbag that or like a protein bar, so I have doubled with them occasionally, But I definitely wouldn't say that they're as healthy as what they are marketed, and even particularly
the fiber. You know, they're marketed as these like wonderful replacements to breakfast, but I think for the right person potentially, you know, for our young athletes and people with higher requirements, I think they could be a good option. But I think for the large majority of ossies who are looking to lose weight, I mean, let's see, right, let's review them.
Well, okay, I've chased two just to quick look. The first one that I had to look at is the very well known brand and it was probably the first one to market here in Australia is the bel Vita Breakfast biscuits. They're in the yellow packet. Now, I'm pretty sure they're actually in the biscuit section. I don't think they're in the cereal section. From memory and I've chosen there's a whole lot of them lean, there's like sort
of Natella ones with chocolate in them. There's chocolate varieties, there's minis in.
Mini packs, there's a cranberof lavor.
Yeah, I've just chosen this sort of traditional, larger ones. These ones are called milk and cereals. They're an overseas product. Actually, they're made in France, and this is the exact one you'll find overseas. They're not made here in Australia, so they're imported. They retail for four dollars fifty for force packets, six in for six biscuits, six in there, six mini packs and then the sorry, the mini packs have each
got that's right, they're fifty grams in it. Yes, that's three hundred grams, so they're fifty grams and they've got four individual biscuits, and there's six packs per four dollars fifty Now per serve. That gives us about two hundred and twenty calories per serve, nine hundred kilodel four grams of protein. So if I was comparing it, and eggs got about eight to ten grams of protein per egg, and a bowl of oats with milk would have about ten twelve grams of protein, so that's less than a
third of those serves. Total fat seven grams, and there is less than just on three percent saturated fat, so eleven percent fat overa also not a low fat option. Carbohydrate thirty three point seven grams, so that's two decent slices of breadworth of carbohydrate, ten point one grams of sugar, so eleven percent sugars in that, and they're not naturally
occurring sugars in a biscuit product. We'll take a closer look at the ingredients in a second, but it's not like lactose naturally occurring in dairy or fructose naturally occurring in fruit. These are added sugars. Three point four grams
of dietary fiber. Now that is what we would define as a server fiber, but certainly much lower than what I would like people to get in a couple of slices of whole grain bread, which should be closer to eight at least, and in a good quality breakfast cereal six to eight, so again about half the dietary fiber. Keep in mind this is a fifty gram small serve of a food for breakfast, and one hundred and ninety seven milligrams of sodium, so you know, pretty low in general.
I guess it's not lovely loaf for biscuits low, but it's not a huge amount of sodium. Made in France. The product, so the cereal component that say lists of cereals, which is something sort of referred to more overseas than traditionally on labels here in Australia, but that basically refers to the grain or the starch content. So this is a wheat flour forty eight percent, which is not a
whole wheat flour, so that is a refined sauce. It's twenty five percent of that is whole grain cereal, which is a good thing, you know, that's adding to the fiber. It's got a mix of wheat flour, whole grain oat flakes, buckwheat grits, barley flour, whole grain rye flour, whole grain spelt flour. The next ingredient is sugar, so as we said, it's added sugar and vegetable oil and hasten to say it's likely palm bulking agent, milk, solids raising agents, mineral
mineral salt, mulsifier, soy, lethus, and flavors. So it contains wheat, oats, barley, ryece spelt, milk, and soy. Now we could talk. You know, it's a biscuit. I don't know. I can't. I struggle to find anything positive nutritionally in this product. And the issue I have with it is that they're sort of aggressively marketed as a breakfast item. There's a whole range
of them. There's chocolate, as I said, there's one field sort of with chocolate spread you know, this is to me lean there's nothing that mimics breakfast in this product which is called a breakfast product, and I have fundamental issues with that. Now, admittedly it's not an Australian made product. This is a big brand overseas. It's very well recognized, so it's sort of an imported product that's brought to
this market. I guess to test it out in a way, and there's perhaps a demand for it, but I think that it's really misleading to call it breakfast because to me, there's nothing that mimics a well balanced breakfast, which would include a decent source of protein, much better profile of carbohydrate, much higher amount of fiber, much less added sugar. So I think it's really quite misleading and I'm not a fan. I don't recommend them and I don't use them.
Yeah, there's no healthy fat in there either. Yeah. Really, I mean, I think you'd have to be pretty specific with the type of person, and right, I think sort of young athletes who are I don't know, maybe going to rowing at five am in the morning or something like that, where you're just looking for something quick and easy they can eat one Mum or Dad are driving them in the car and they jumping off and they
go into the early early morning sport. Maybe because it's got a really good amount of sort of accessible energy. It's got a bit of sugar in there. Maybe for someone like a growing team, but I just don't think for any sort of adult, whether you're trying to lose weight or not. This is, as you mentioned, Susie, any sort of nourishment. Really we're missing a good serve of healthy bad. It's the carbo hydrate load's not too bad, but the addition of the carbohydrate it's not great. The
sugars are pretty high, the protein's pretty low. I mean, it's pretty affordable if you're looking for some positives. Four dollars fifty for six packets. It's that's on a dollar per serving. But there's no sustenance to that. Like if I had that, ide'd be hungry thirty minutes later. It's just it's not something that you would actually call anything that's sort of well rounded or nourish as a breakfast item. It's very much a biscuit. It's very much something that
I would rather use as a snack. So four biscuits, like you basically have four biscuits for breakfast. There's no other way around it. It is a biscuit, even though to be honest, I don't market it is that it's called Belvita Breakfast milk and cereals, So as you said, they're heavily marketed as breakfast. I don't call it a biscuit, but let's be honest, it's a biscuit. There's no other way around.
It, and it's in the biscuit aisle. I'm pretty sure as well. I'm actually surprised they've survived this long. They've been around a while. I'm surprised because I don't I'm just thinking who buys them, Like, I'm actually just surprised. It's so hard in supermarket to survive, let alone this long. Someone's buying it. But I think even for athletes there's better options, you know what I mean, Like there's musli bars and breakfast bars that are much better nutritionally than
that product. So yeah, as I said, I really struggle to find anything decent to say about it at all. But you know, it's just interesting what survives overseas and what's popular there, because certainly that whole model of cereals in the morning is very common initially in Europe.
If I look at the front of packet marketing, like if I hadn't turned it over, looked at the nutrition label, looked at the ingredient list, I would probably think that that is a better option than a museally by just based on the front of pack marketing, I would think that that's a plain product I could give my kids and it would be healthy. I think it's low sugar, says milk and cereal. I would probably assume that there's
some added sort of calcium or something in there. If I just took it on front of pack marketing alone, I honestly would probably say that that is a healthy product that I think a lot of parents would give to their children. I honestly believe that, and I think that's who is supporting this and buying these products, and that's probably why it's really lasted so long.
And that's why it's misleading. Yeah, it's misleading, and that's and doing the mini packs is terrible because it encourages parents to buy those for kids. As soon as you see minis that's what people pack in lunchboxes and for kids for snacks. And you're absolutely right if you're marketing or positioning as a breakfast item, you would assume a
certain level of calcium in or dairy base. Now at least if you're formulating a product like that, adds some fortify it, puts some begrit vitamins in, put some extra dietary fiber in, puts add some calcium to it, and then from annutrition perspective, we could model with that and potentially use it for fussy eaters to tick some nutrient boxes.
But it's not even fortified. So to me, it's like, you know, not only are you positioning in a breakfast space, but you're not providing some of the key nutrients we would expect with breakfast and then you're not even bothering
to fortify it a bit. So yeah, I really sort of struggle with it how it survives here in general, And certainly, you know, I often see little kids at the park, you know, with plain milk type biscuits because I think, I don't know where that comes from either, but I guess if the biscuit's got milk in the title, you know, you could be forgiven for thinking it's a
source of dairy. So you know, you can see how busy parents so trying to make good choices, and they see that and they think, oh, well, that's going to be better than you know, a sweet biscuit or a chocolate nut thing, you know, so they grab it. But yeah, that's why I wanted to cover them today because I thought it's a really interesting product to discuss for those reasons.
Maybe they're meant to be drunk with a glass of milk, right, because then at least you'd be getting a little bit more calcium, a little bit more protein in there as well.
Maybe.
Yeah, I mean, overall, I think it's definitely it's not a total red light for me, but it's definitely not a green light either. I'd call it sort of orange. I'd think have with caution and for the right type of person. Maybe, I think definitely having it with a glass of milk would boost up the nutrition of that product, particularly using it as breakfast.
If you did it, if you had it with a glass of milk, you're closer to three hundred cow You're getting fourteen grams of protein depending on that. If you're having full creep milk, that you're getting twenty grams of fat, but then you're adding you know, you're getting close to fifty grams of carb there, which is an insignificant for children or adults, you know, So I yeah, I really struggle to place it. And as I said, I certainly
don't use it, but there's a lot of them. So as I said, it's hard in supermarkets, so it's probably we do this segment just to try and wade through the rubbish that can be out there or just the confusion that can be out there for busy people. So
the other one I've chosen is the Uncle Toby's Breakfast Bake. Now, I actually did some work with this product when it launched a few years ago, and I'll share wye at a second, because it's probably not something I would do as much now, but i'll share why I did it at the time. So it's six dollars fifty for six so straight away, and that to me suggests it's higher quality because inevitably in supermarket, if it's relatively cheat you put inexpensive, it's probably not as high quality. You do
pay more for high quality food. I just saw strawberries at ten dollars a punt, which kind of sums it up. So this is in the breakfast section, though these Uncle Toby's under the oats ranges in the breakfast section at rate, it's got four and a half health Star rating. Now we've spoken about the pros and cons of that before, but it is rated relatively high based on the overall profile a service sixty five gram so it's a heavy bar.
It's quite substantial, and the calories reflect that. You know, it's almost three hundred calories per bar, so it's got some serious weight to it for busy, potentially active people who need a good energy hit in the morning. Our protein is not overly high, close to six grams per serve. The fat is ten point two grams, again not insignificant, but the saturated fat's very low, suggesting that the fats are coming from better sources, and we'll take a closer
look at that in a second. Similar amount of hydrate of the bel beta at thirty three point eight and seven point five grams of sugar at eight percent, so not insignificant. Again, seven point four grams dietary fiber though, so just over twice what you're getting in the bel beta range and much lower sodium coming in. It's just fifty so it contains. When I'm looking whole grain oats fifty three percent, so half of it's got an oat base.
Next ingredients glucose, so aget an, added sugar, chicker root fiber. Now we'll talk about that the second because we've both got thoughts on it. To get that fiber content up, sunflowur oil, honey, five percent roasted almond, so there is a nut proportion to it, which is where they're getting some of those good fats from. Second source of sugar and brown sugar almond meal, again improving the fat ratio. Actually, that's the third source of added sugar. Let's go glucose,
honey and then brown sugar, glicerine. Just to bind it a little bit, Tapioca starch another source of added sugar, wheat protein minerals adding some calcium to that, even though they haven't listed calcium on the label, which is interesting. Flavor a mulsifier eyed ied sole mineral salt. It's very low amounts given the overall sodium. So is this one
that much better? Now? At the time I did this, it was because it was marketed to kids who didn't eat breakfast as a better alternative based on the whole greater content. Now, I did it at the time it was two or three years ago. I probably wouldn't do it now because as I've got a bit older and doing a lot more of this stuff, I have to be a lot stricter. But I did do it at the time because for non breakfast eaters, I would argue that this is slightly better, but is it gold standard?
No?
And as I said, I probably wouldn't do it again now. But nutritionally it is better than the bell Beta biscuit, I believe. But the only people that I would now prescribe this too is probably my busy active teens and young athletes who need a good amount of energy in the morning and can get away with that kind of added sugar in the diet. So yeah, I sort of would give it. Say I'd give the Belveta four or five out of ten, and i'd give this probably seven. I don't know what, do you think?
Maybe low, only because I know that a lot of my breakfast eaters, like, if you're going to be someone that eats breakfast, they're hungry, and this is not a volume dense food. This is not something work. I mean, I could probably eat this bake or this bar, whatever you want to call it into its three mouthfuls, like
it's not a large amount of food. Yes, So for me, just from a fat loss perspective, this isn't ideal because I think people will just feel hungry or just that mind you know how you need a good portion of food in front of your eyes, need to see a good portion of food to even feel full to begin with, if that makes sense, Like you want to feel like you're eating a decent amount of food, and when you're just munching on something that's basically musually bar for breakfast,
I just wouldn't feel satisfied. I'd probably be looking for something within an hour. That's me personally, and I know a lot of my clients are the same. We really work in building volume, dense meals for them. So I think the right type of person, as you said, someone who's super busy or maybe doesn't eat breakfast but probably should. You know, the person that tends to skip breakfast because they're so busy, but then over eats later on, perhaps
this is something for them. So definitely the ingredient list is a bit better. The amount of fiber in there, some of that coming from the rolled oach, a large bulk that's also coming from the chickery root fiber. We don't tolerate that very well, Susie and I together. It's in a lot of breakfast products. It's what they used to sort of not artificially, but to add in extra fiber to a lot of breakfast based cereals, protein bars, cereals, that sort of thing. So it makes me very very gassy,
and I just don't tolerate. I get terrible cramps with it. But if you're wondering why you do struggle with a lot of these bars and cereal based products, take a look at the label, because I'm and a lot of my clients actually struggle with chickory root fiber as well. But the interesting thing I saw on the front of pack label, Susie, is that the glacemic index. So this
is obviously something that they're marketing at diabetics. So it's got, you know, the equivalent of two slices of better than there. I think two slices bread with some eggs and a good quality factor and some vegetables as well to slow down the digestion all of that carbohydrate would be a much better choice if I was a diabetic. This is definitely not something that I would recommend for my diabetics.
But of course it's going to be a better option than if you were a diabetic and you had, you know, three of four Scots fingers with your copper morning coffee. This would yet probably be a better option. So it's really it's maybe the better of a bad bunch. I
don't know. It's not definitely not my favorite type of breakfast option, but I think young teens, busy athletes, people with high requirements, people who are too busy to eat anything and just want to munch something quickly to get something in to prevent that over eating later on, perhaps it could be a good option. But definitely, nutrition profile Wiles is absolutely better than the bell be bars. I would definitely say that.
And you know, when I'd use it, I wouldn't even use it for breakfast. I'd use it like as an afternoon snack on the go when you need something kind of where kids are hungry and they're looking for something. It's going to be a million times better than a muffin or banana bread or a cake as that more sweet addition to a lunchbox. But you know, it's not in significant calories. It's pretty much carry hundred calories in
that bar. It's a meal. So, as I said, now, prescribing it or using it, and to be honest, I wouldn't have recommended this ever. I don't think, you know, aggressively, because I don't do athletes or young kids very often. But if I had a tea age, you know, swimmer or rugby player and they were looking for ways to
get calories in easily, I'd use it then. But because I don't see many of those people, I certainly don't prescribe it to any of my women who have that loss and weight losses a goal, and I certainly don't prescribe it to any of my insul and resistant pre
diabetic women with that carbohydrate load. So yeah, I think that there's a specific potential market for it, and it's certainly better than Belvita, But I think that it's a very specific product for that similar up and go group who perhaps can process that amount of energy and need the calories. But that's certainly not the clients that I'm
communicating or seeing in my day to day work. Agreed, pretty harsh and good breakfast biscuits, But I think sometimes it's better to have it said you know Leanne and I are honest and that's why you listen. So any thoughts anything we've mislet us know. But that does bring us to the end of the Nutrition Couch product review for another week. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to have this delivered tea in box every Sunday and Wednesday morning. We are so great for your support.
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