We normally find that people sit in two camps, those that love tuna and those that hate it. So today, for our tuna lovers, this episode.
Is for you. Hi.
I'm Leanne Wood and I'm Susie Burrow and it's two of Austraya's leading dieticians. We bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly chat on new products and old favorites that you can find at the supermarkets. So on today's episode of Team Tuna, we chat through three different types of tunas and why we would and wouldn't.
Recommend them for our clients.
So I thought we dived straight and Susie with the first one, which I have chosen as the John West Tempters Mango Chili tuna. So John West is a very popular Aussie brand of tuna. I mustay, I'm probab gonna say it's probably the most popular on the market. I know you're not a big tuna fan, but I myself quite like tuno. I use it regularly for my clients,
and John West is one of the most popular. I would say, I think it's just because it's been, you know, heavily marketed, so people recognize it as sort of like you know, one of the bigger ones within that section, so I had to do something from their range, and I went with the mango chili because you know, living in Australia, it's all about mango season right now, I'm obsessed with right are you eating lots of mango?
I just got to live at a tray of Kensington mango. So thanks Pervisent, though is I were fantastic. I'm a massive mango fan. I have to say, Leanne, I'm loving your choices today. I'm learning something about tuna, so I'm not the best tuna fan myself. I do love my clients to have it, though, so this is very educational for me.
So thanks.
I've gone with a flavored one and you'll see wine a second. So this one generally retails for two dollars seventy, but it was on sale this week at Colls for a dollar thirty five, so Johns is more of one of the most one of the more expensive ones in the range. I would say in terms of tin tuna, so all of the ones with Joe'sen today are the smaller ninety five gram tins, so generally pretty good for like a single serve of proteins A for lunch as an easy kind of lunch option. I generally use the
small tinns for my clients at lunch. So this one, now, I must also say that it's very hard. I haven't come across one yet, SUSI to find a tin tuna that is from Australia. So all three of the ones today have been made in Thailand unfortunately, because I just
couldn't come across one that was Asi made. So if we look at the ingredients, it is forty four percent pure seen called skipjack tuna, followed by water rehydrated diced mango, thirteen percent, sunflower oil, mango chili seasoning which contains wheat chili at one point five percent, followed by salt, dried capsicum, sugar, garlic powder, natural flavor and natural color. So an interesting ingredient panel or nothing too, I guess controversial in there.
But let's go through the nutrition information panel because for me, Susie, that was the one that really hit home in terms of if I would or wouldn't recommend it for my clients. So per serving, which is a ninety five gram tin, energy wise we have about five hundred and twenty kilodules twelve point five grams of protein, which if I'm being honest, is on the low side for a tin of tuna. I generally like my clients up over fifteen grad of protein per tin, if not closer to twenty grams if
I can, especially if they're training and exercising. Fat wise, we have five point one grams of fat, with point seven grams being saturated, so very good fat profile, with two point nine grams being poorly unsaturated and one point four grams being mono unsaturated. Now we've got six point four grams of carbohydrate with five point three grams of added sugar, which you know is kind of unusual in a tin of tuna, which is kind of why I chose this one, because it does have the added sugar
in there. Some that's coming from the mango, and some of that is a little bit of added sugar as well.
Into the product.
We've got just less than a gram of fiber and four hundred and twenty eight milligrams of sodium, not insignificant in a tin of tuna.
Suzi, No, I'm sort of sitting middle ground here because obviously, of all the lunch choices that we can find, tin fish is a great source of protein. It's a great source of amiga three fat. Not as high as salmon, I will say, being a salmon ambassador, But you know, I look at this ingraded list and it's pretty clean on the whole. You know, there's not really any artificial
additives or flavor enhancers. Yes, there's a bit added sugar. Indeed, it's probably not something that I routinely encourage my clients to check, but now I absolutely would because I don't want twelve grams of protein, which isn't overly high land, going in with five grams of sugars. I just don't need that with lunch choices. So for me, based on that, it does sit middle ground, because really I sort of like a protein surf to be close to twenty and I usually sort of default just to a tuna in
spring water or drained in olive oil. So yeah, I probably do need to pay a bit more attention to these kind of additives going in, and I certainly don't need you know, sunflower oil and sugars going in with the tuna. I'm not overly concerned about the sodium with tin fish because for me, the benefits outweigh the negatives in having tin fish, and it's like all tin food, it will have added sodium. So yes, it's not low, but I'm not horrified at that number. I think it's
pretty good to make it palatable. But I'm a bit disappointed that the protein's only coming in at twelve point five. I would have really liked it to be up closer to eighteen percent. And based on that, I will certainly be saying to my clients, now, look, I don't want sweet flavors being added to the tuna. I have a quick scan of those lists. But is that something that you have sort of pointed clients towards. So have you been that specific with them?
Absolutely, I always say look for a tin of tuna with a high protein amount and very little added sugar if any. So I much prefer to add the flavor in what I'm adding the tuna into. So if it's a salad, we'll add the flavor in there through maybe some some fats like avocado ands and balsamic vinegar. Maybe if it's a wrap, will add a little bit of cheese. I'll add some I don't know, chili sauce or something like that some there, So chuck.
Something in the chuck something in there. You know it's late. It's late on a Sunday night. Is this nine pms a Sunday night? I was struggling for our words here. I've exceeded my caffeine for today. So you're doing very relying on doing better.
Because as a reference, like the brands that I usually refer to, or say, for example, a tuna in olive all drained, yeah, they're closer to say eighteen brands, so
that you know is rushing off of that. But what I also will say from a cost perspective, right, like you found these half price, which is great, and tuna tins are often half priced, but if you're paying full freight for these, so it's two dollars seventy for quite a small tin and two dollars seventy for just twelve grams of protein, when you could pay that for full strength stuff and be getting eighteen, it's a much smartest spend to get as high a protein content as possible
rather than these flavors which are basically adding sort of stuff you don't need instead of selling it at a high price point. So for me, if you're paying for protein, you want as much as you can get and twelve is not cutting it for me in terms of a lunch choice one hundredcent.
I'd rather get a tuna in spring rod or olive oil like you said, and add some freshman go into my sale it along with it, and that way you're getting that same taste, but you're getting the boost in protein, which we is really important metabolically. So definitely not one that I would recommend, SUSI, purely based on the fact that it's low protein and it has added sugars which we just don't really want in a tin of tuna or need.
I would say it's a great thing to draw awareness to. I think it's really good.
And then the second product that I've got today is a Coals brand one and really cost effective, Susie. It's a Coals branded Mexican style tuna. They retail for ninety cents per ninety five gram tin. So I just don't think that you can beat a good old home brand a couple of tins of tuna in the pantry as a massive pantry staple. And I would honestly eat china a couple of times a week in a wrap, in a salad, maybe even putting it into like a toasted sandwich with a bit of cheese and tomato and stuff
and just put it into the toasted sandwich maker. I just find it a really really affordable and healthy source of protein just so easy. I don't like cooking protein for lunch a lot of the time, so tuna or a bit of tofu into a nonstick panna is my easy go to. So this one is also unfortunately made
in Thailand. And when we look at the ingrideless it's got thirty nine percent skip jack tuna, twenty percent tomato spring water, followed by a tomato paste at eight percent, pickled jalapino chili's green capsicum, red kidney beans at five percent, sweet corn at five percent, salt, cuman xanthium gum and
that's the last ingredient. And that it says the skip tuna is caught in the wild in the Western and Central Pacific oceans using methods that reduce by capch So I think they're sort of mentioning a farming sort.
Of Yeah, there's like a certain interest in farming practices, and rightly so for all sort of sustainable seafood. What I do know is is whilst there are more boutique tuna brands that are perhaps more environmentally regulated, they're also at a much higher price point. So Leanna and I want to be very clear here, we're purely reviewing the nutritionals. We're not sitting here for an environmental perspective. Not that we don't think that's important, it's just not what our
messaging is about. So this is purely based on the nutritionals of these products as opposed to an opinion on the farming and tuna involved.
One hundred percent. That's a great point.
And from a budget perspective, because we know we've received thousands of responses in the survey that we put out on Instagram the other day, so thank you so much if you filled that in. And budgeting was a huge concern from the majority of our listeners. So to provide you guys with budget friendly options is really what our top priority and top goal is at the moment. And if you want to take that one step further and look at some of the most environmentally friendly options, then
by all means, please do that. So this one, as I said, yet ninety cents per tin colls Mexican style tuna. When we look at the ingredient panel, so per ninety five gram tin. The energy is only just shy of three hundred killer jeels. Only seventy calories per tin, so very low. Now we've got eleven point three grams of protein, so again, Susie, really low for a tin of Tunao points seventy five grams of fats, extremely low fat, four
point six grams of carbohydrate. Only a tiny bit of carbohydrate coming in through the kidney beans in the corner. I would imagine two hundred and seventy three milligrams of sodium, so almost half the John West one. And it's also listed amigasree content just shy of zero point two. So I know this one's incredibly low, Susie, but I chose it for two reasons. One it's very budget friendly, and two, I find that you're either a tin tuna person or you're not. And I find I've had this one and
it's quite tasty. It has a lovely Mexican taste between the tomatoes and the black beans and the little just a touch of chili, a little bit of Capsican, a little bit of corn in there, like there's some added vegetables in there, and I really like that. And it doesn't have an overly like fishy tuna taste to it.
So if you're someone who's not a big tuna fan, or you kind of want to get into maybe trying a little bit of tin tuna here and there, I find that this is a great one a from a budget perspective and be from an ingredient perspective to start on to kind of get you used to that tin tuna. Like, put this into a rap with a little bit of cheese or avocado, put it in the toasted sandwich maker, and it really masks that fishiness taste of the tuna.
So I recommend this one to clients who don't love tin tuna, but they're like, look, leanne, I'm open to try.
Can you give me a recipe?
Or it might taste good, or I might use it in like a pasta bake with a tup of rocotta, a little bit of extra veggies and a bit of tomato paste sprink or some cheese on top of baked in the oven. I really don't want to have that strong fishy taste coming through. So although it's low protein, if we can pair it with something like a bit of cheese or rocotta or some like chickpea based pasta, we can actually boost the protein of the overall meal. And I feel like, from a budging perspective, this is
such a good one. I can't go past but I am well aware that it is low protein, so I will pair it with something else, maybe into a salad with some extra beans, maybe into a wrap with some cheese or rocotta, to really boost that overall protein content.
One hundred percent. You know, it sits in the middle ground. But from a priced perspective, whenever we look at trolleys that come in under a certain price point, literally the only way you can get protein rich meals in for a family is to include at least a couple of vegetable based meals and a tuna sort of mornee tuna patty type dish. So for families who are feeding you know, several children, knee quick and easy meals like you described.
You know, teeming this up as part of a mixed meal is extremely cost effective and you know, overall pretty good. Sure it's got a little bit of additives, but compared to fast food take away, you know, frozen fish that's a lot more processed, this is going to be one hundred times better. And you know, it's what is that a quarter a third of the cost of sort of
a name brand with a similar profile. So from a price perspective, and I think for families and making family mixed meals, I probably wouldn't use it as much as lunch choice myself. In recommendations, I'd probably go for the largest serve and use it in mixed meals as a base to some of those foods. But certainly it can have a place if you're on a type budget and you're still getting some really good stuff from it.
And honestly, it's very little additives.
Most of it's whole food ingredients like tuna, tomato water, spring water, tomato paste, chili, capsica, and red kidney beans, corn, salt, and cumin are fine. The last one is just sent pink gum. It's a very last ingredient, and I very much imagine it's just in there as a little bit of like a stable. So for me, I'd say that's ninety five percent really clean ingredient list.
And the sodium is pretty low, like less than three hundred milligrams for sort of one one hundred is actually quite low for any kind of tin food. So yeah, I'm with you one hundred percent. I would, you know, give it a seven out of ten. I'd rate it the other the first one probably like a six, and then this close to seven seven and a half, particularly at a strong price point.
And then the last one. This is my home run hitter. And I must preference this with saying I didn't choose a spring water tuna one because to me, oh, lest be honest, I just taste like catfish unless you put it with something really, really tasty, it is just too fishy for me. I'm just like, oh, so, I didn't go with a springwater one. If you springwater's your jam, by all means you guys going nuts, It's not mine.
So I went with the Serena.
You pronounce a Serena Serena yea Serena basil infused tuna brand. So this one's a more pricey one. It's marketed as a I guess, higher end tuna brand. So it's the basil infused tuna in oil and again a ninety five gram tin. So again coming from Thailand, even only three ingredients, we've got tuna at seventy four percent, basil infused oil
at twenty four point eight percent and sea salt. There are only three ingredients and within the basil infused oil contains extraversion olive oil, sunflow oil and natural basil flavor. So a very very clean ingredient list. And SUSI, I've had it and it tastes really good. And for me, I think it's important, particularly when you're talking about tuna, something so polarizing, like you love it or you hate it, it has to taste good. It really does. So for me,
this one tastes great. Yes, it's a high price point, but I must admit I only ever buy it what it's half price, and what it's half price, I'll buy about twenty tins and shove them in the back of the pantry.
Can't wait for you to get your new kitchen where we've got stockpiles of all these on sale items.
It's fantastic.
I love it.
I'm a massive horder when things are hot price. I must admit. Buttet Green when I.
First started working as a dietitian and I were working in cardiac nutrition, and so we would talk a lot about fish and tinfish, and because I wasn't a massive tuna eater, I became very educated, very quickly from my clients that the only or not the only, but the preferred brand for taste, even though it wasn't an Australian company with Serena, so I sort of, you know, off the record, I'm completely aware that people who are tuna lovers will say that they love this flavor of this product.
It's a bit like your affinity with soy milk. You've got brands that you really like for the flavor, and I think this to be the case absolutely. Serena fans are massive Serena fans, and you know, Leanne and I, where possible always try and support Australian brands and Austrainian products. But when things taste nutritionally superior for a range of different reasons, this is always the go to product, and I think that's why commands are a much higher price point.
But it's great to also know they do also do the half price because that makes it much more affordable. Nususually Leanne, Let's be honest, we like it because the ingredient list is so clean. Ideally it would be all extraversion olive oil, but it's a mix of sunflower and extravergin so and I don't know if if that's the case in their one just in extraversion, I'll just look at while we're having a now, but even the A Mega three amounts.
Are pretty good.
The protein that we've described is up around eighteen grams per serve, which is what we're looking for. The sodium is reasonable, so and then as we said anecdotically, everyone will talk about how much how good this product always tastes.
And I actually haven't gone through the ingredient panel, So while you look up for the one an extra version olive oil, I shall do that. So per serving size interesting, So it says one serving is seventy gram so I think that just means drained because the tin is ninety five grams, so they must just drain off the oil and the liquid. And they've called a serving sized seventy grams, so we're still comparing like to like like all three tins I imagine would be roughly around that sort of
seventy to eighty gram serving size. So energy wise, we've got five hundred and seventy kilodules. Protein wise, this is what we like to see, Susie, seventeen point six grams of protein per tin, so lovely high. I'm out there total fat is seven point three grams coming from the tuna itself and the infusion of the sunflower oil and the extraversion olive oil. Saturated fat is only one gram, so low, which is what we would expect tin of China.
Carbohydrates is less than a gram, sugar is less than a gram, and sodium is three sixty milligrams, So sort of sitting about mid range between the other two that we've chosen, but still not really of concern unless you really have issues with sort of floor destrictions or cardiac restrictions. So I think overall, this one probably for me, Susie comes out on top, although it is the most expensive one.
Like I said, I would only really ever buy at half price, and I really do have a love for the kind of home brand style of tuna as well. I quite like the Coals and Wilwors just pure smoked tuna brands, and they're quite high in protein as well from memory, about seventeen to eighteen grams as well, So if you're using this as your main protein sauce as a lunch or dinner, you'd want to get as close to twenty grams ideally as you can. If that was kind of the only protein sauce in your meal.
So I'm just having a quick look at the ones online now. So the Serena, which is the Italian style, is still a mix of the sunflower and the extraversion or does it sorry, just olive oil and extraversion extra once extraversion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why I chose. So that's the same, that's a blend. But it's this other one which is called the Levita Light, which I think from what I can tell here is all extra virgin
olive oil at three point eight percent. So that's interesting, and that's a product a light Arena Loveta light in oil is the one with all extravagin olive oil, so you really do have to take your glasses to be you know, having a look at this now, I've got a controversial question to ask you, Alien, Given that the tuner is in a reasonable amount of oil, like twenty grams worth, do you tell clients to drain it or they can eat it?
I tell clients to drain it only because normally when I'm using if it's in a salad and I've calculated it into their calories, I'm happy for them to have it. And generally my clients aren't eating tuna salad, most of them eating it in some sort of rapp or sandwich or something like that. So generally i'd say drain it because otherwise it goes gross and soggy.
Well, just also looking at these numbers, that's interesting, right, because if the total fat perserve here is seven point three grams, that's a drained amount. So if you then didn't not drain, you'd be getting a fair whack of fat. Is that a fair call?
Yeah, it's a be a fair call because it's twenty five percent fat.
Yeah, So if you don't drain, based on what we're reading here in this product, if you go the ninety five gram well over ten graund, you're getting a nice dose of an extra ten to fifteen grams of fat in your lunch. So that's interesting, isn't it?
What about? Okay?
Another question? Then, would you then tell people the la vita it's all extravergin olive, or that they still have to drain it based on calories, or would you let them have it for flavor and fat is the dressing.
I'd let them have it, but I definitely calculate it into whatever recipe I gave it.
In.
Yeah.
Okay, so you would say, you would say, use that because it's quite good quality oil, but you can't have dressing.
Dressing.
Yeah, well, add a splash of balstomach or something to balance addressing all, a bit of lemon juice or something. Yeah, fair col Yeah, if I didn't want them to drain it, I would use it as some sort of dressing into a salad or something.
Yeah, so that is your dressing as well. So that's relevant, really, isn't it. Because I think my observation with people in their salads is they you know, people clients, is that they're you know, to be healthy and have the tuna salad, which is great, but perhaps they do get the one in oil which is perhaps not always good quality olive oil, and the nutritional like counting it as part of the
overall profile. And then they might add some extra fetta and then some olives and maybe then some dressing as well, and your so called healthy salad can sort of be my salad with thirty forty grams of fat before you realize it. So it is worth paying a little bit of attention to that, and keep in mind that if you are having a tuna that is in oil, and you are using a fair whack of that that is the fat. You don't need to then add dressing as well,
maybe something plain like a balsamic. Then if you are going for the spring water, well then you can sort of use the dressing, but you don't get to double dress to make it taste better.
One hundred percent. And that just brought to mine.
I was having a conversation with a client who is working with me at the moment, and she's like, oh, getting such great results, blah blah, why hasn't it happened in the past. She was very much macrotracking and using something like my Fitness Power to track everything, but she was eating a lot of packaged food and scanning everything in So if you just scan this label, it would
automatically assume that you're draining it. If you're having a tin of tuna for lunch every day in the oil, you're probably having an extra what fifty hundred, one hundred and fifty calories easy without draining it from the oil. And you're scanning that labeling thinking it's completely accurate, when actually it's calculating the drained amount. So again, just another thing to be wary of. If you're using things like macro tracking and calorie tracking. If you're not getting the results,
something's off. You've just got to figure out what it is.
Because I have never, in all my years of work looked at it and realized that that's not including a lot of the extra oil that a lot of people would eat. So you know, there's lots of those little tricks that come up all the time, which is why this is really handy. And even I've learned something today, so fantastic, good choice of products here, soizybar are learning something on a Sunday night controversial tuna announcement.
Are you draining or are you eating?
I personally mostly drained because I just hate like the tuna stuff dripping out of my sandwich or my wrap, So I personally drain.
Well, I'm a tin salmon person, and I sort of mash the red I like red salmon, so I like mash the bones in. It doesn't really have that oily layer. That is the issue that comes with you now. But yeah, so our best tips are you probably need to drain and buy at half priced Hendry Staple. Oh we're like delirious wizard and bring on the holidays.
Wrapping us up, Rubbing us up now says before we say something from regret. So that brings us through the end of the Nutrition Couch Podcast Product review for another week. We have a very exciting product ebook now available on our website. If you haven't seen it already, head to the nutrition couch dot com and we will catch you guys in the next episode.
Have a great week.