TNC Review: Kids Yoghurt Pouches

a little bit sucked into from a health halo perspective. Hi, I'm Susie Burrow and Eileen 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 favorites that you can find in the supermarket. So leanne I have wanted to do yogurts for a little while. We know that our listeners

are very very interested in yogat in general. Whenever we include any kind of content on yogurts and then there's a whole range of kids yogurts too, we get a really positive response, so we know it's neary people are interested in. And so I straight away was able to tell you the products I wanted to look at because my little boys do like yogurt. I've got one who

prefers it more than the other one. But they've had yogurt from when they're quite small, and actually, this is a little tip for you with me, when my babies were really sort of little, so nine months twelve months, when you first start to introduce foods like yogurt, I used the Baramba Baby yogurt because it was quite low in protein and had literally nothing in it but milk.

I really like that brand. Now it's tricky to find, and I think I ended up getting it from Harris Farm often at the time, but I would only use that or a very natural yogat. It's only been since they're a lot older, like I'm talking four and five, that I've even introduced flavored yogurt. I think it's really important that we say that the less sweet food that you introduce into the diets of small children, the better.

I would say that pouch yogurt, I wouldn't be giving it to kids younger than I reckon at least two, maybe a bit older. And you certainly, as we'll discuss in a second, of looking for brands that don't contain any added sugar whatsoever. But absolutely i'd be seeking out just plain natural yogurts and mixing them with a little bit of fruit, so the kids get used to that more tart flavor and are not constantly looking for sweet food.

So that's a little trick. I think that when we say kids, we're really talking more about primary school age kids. You know, products that you might add into the lunch box at school, and specifically in terms of the one we're going to talk about first, which is the Valleier Kids probiotic yogurt pouch, a very popular one, but it's also leanne, a really big one, so it's one hundred and forty grams, which is massive, you know, for particularly

for a small child. So if you were giving this to your two year old, this is way too many calories and specifically sugar we're going to talk about in a second. So as I said, my recommendation is stick to the very small portions and if you do use pouch yogurt and no added sugar, pouch yogurt for little kids, you absolutely want the smallest one's possible. But this is marketed for kids. You can see a massive kids right across the front at retails for about a dollar twenty

per pouch at Woollies and coal's it's fairly available. We check it the ingredient list. Whole milks give milk, orter sugar, milk solid, strawberry pulp. So straight away, leanne, I'm looking at that. I see sugar on the list, and I don't like it because we shouldn't have added sugar in yogurt, I think in general lit alone kids yogurt, So straight away I'm put off strawberry and at three point five percent. There's also rice starch, which, let's be honest, is another

form of sugar gelatin natural flavors. Regulators live yogurt cultures, so there is some good bugs in there that they're adding in. But it comes in at five hundred kilogel, so just over one hundred and thirty calories per serve, six grams of protein, three grams of fat, and total two point four saturated, So low and saturated fat, but massive. You know, sixteen point five grams of carb, twelve point

five grams of which are sugars. Now, admittedly you will get some naturally occurring sugar in any dairy food, milk, yogurt, but in this case it's added sugar, some of it. At least it's not differentiated added from naturally occurring and I just can't justify that, particularly if a small child was having this. This is more than half their daily

sugar intake in a single pouch. Now I am aware it is some of it natural, but it just is an added sugar food that shouldn't be in kids' diets and for me, the portion is just way, way too large. The good news is, thoughlyand that there are a growing range of smaller portions and in particular ones that clearly say no added sugar. And this is a perfect example why we need that labeling in Australia that differentiates added to naturally occurring sugars in foods like fruit and dairy,

so we can make that informed decision. But as a mum, if you're going along and looking at any of these pouches and see sugar written, it's a sign it's not the best product for your child, and there are a better nutritional options out there in the case of.

silk and tastes naturally occurring sugar. But as you said, we don't want like twelve and a half grams of sugar is huge for a small child. And as you said, the more sugar they have, the more sugar they want. So it is definitely not something that we want add kids eating. So I think this one is a big health halo. I think you look at the front of that package marketing and go, you know what that's actually like.

It looks like a really good product, and it retails for a dollar twenty at Woolworth Susie, and as she said, it's a big pouch. It's one hundred and forty gram so a lot of people might think this is actually really good value for money, but you're getting more because they have, you know, bogged out that yogurt with the added sugars and that sort of thing. So I don't think that this is necessarily something that we would We're

not gonna recommend it at all, LAWI SUSI. There are definitely better options on the market, But I really do think the kids yogurt's overall are a bit of a marketing thing anyway, Like why can't kids just eat, as you said, adult yogat, Like why does it even have to be a kid range of yogurts.

in it and use just a natural. But also from a cost perspective, you know, you can get a big container of yogat, so a natural yogurt for I think about four dollars, and that's probably got at least ten serves for a small child versus this that's retailing at one twenty per serve, Like, you can waste a lot of money as well, if budget, if you're trying to focus on your budget, And for me, the portions are way way too large for I wouldn't give that size

until a child was probably eight, probably even closer to ten years old. So the fact that that size and portions being marketed directly to kids, I think is an issue in itself, and we'd like to definitely see people do better with that kind of product than where it's sitting in the market at the moment. So we'll move on to one that i think is one of the better ones. So I've chosen the Tama Valley Dairy Kids

Greek Yogurt pouch. I've got a strawberry one one hundred and ten grams, so much more reasonable portion, and I think Leanne for the babies, you get them at about seventy grams, so this would be something that's more reasonable for a primary school aged child. The seventy ones would be I think the rapid Iss Guarden one is about seventy grams, which is much more appropriate for smaller kids or kids too are yet at school, but not inexpensively.

And one dollar fifty per pouch, you know, like that adds up if you're buying just joke it for the course of the week, so certainly not you know, from a budget perspective, it's not necessarily cost effective for families. We look at the labels, it's a whole milk brand actually it's not low fat. It's whole milk, creamy milk solids, water, strawberry pulp, four point two percent rice starch. Now I will disclose that does also contain some sweetened aspect to it.

It doesn't have the added sugar itself, but it is getting sweetness through the rice starch, natural flavors, lemon pulps, and life culture in there. They're not marketing aggressively on the probiotics, but it does contain culture. So that comes in at just about one hundred calories per serve, four grams of protein, seven point six grams of fat five foot one saturated. So this is not a low fat

product either. So you would argue for kids under the age of five, certainly wouldn't be recommending reduced or low fat dairy, so that certainly is much better for a younger child, even though the portion is sort of for me aimed at by a primary school age. But getting some fat from dairies wouldn't be a cause for concern for me in this context of a whole food. But you can see the difference in sugar straight away land.

So if we go back to their large valia one per serve, this was offering sixteen point five grams of carbohydrate, so just roughly a slice of bread worth of fuel twelve point five grams of which so more than two and a half teaspoons of sugars per cer in that compared to this tama Vali one, which is offering only four grams of carbohydrate and three point five grams of sugars, so you can see the distinct difference.

added calcium serve and we're not labeling for it. So a shout out to both of those companies to label for calcium to help us with that, because indeed, our kids need three serves of dairy minimum to get their calcium requirement, and I would say, both are offering a serve, but we are guessing it'd be really nice to see that too.

I think that's absolutely okay, but I just don't really see the addition all the need for cream added into that yoga. How do you feel about the cream in there? Well, it's not ideal, is it must make it taste good.

So that's sort of where I go. My kids do like this yogurt, But yeah, it's not ideal, but time of our have often, i think added cream in their mix to give it that rich flavor through the mouth, so you know, it's You're right, it's not ideal, and that's why we're getting a fairly hefty dose of saturated fat as well. So they could certainly improve this formulation

a bit. I also wonder if it's to give the thickness that works well in these tubes, because if you were dealing with a yogurt which was low fat, it's watery, right, So I'm thinking that one of the reasons they may do it in this formulation is to give the thickness that's required to make a tube type yogurt work.

for kids. So you're right, maybe it is a form of just bulging it up a little bit, although I imagine the rice starch adds a little bit of bulkness to that as well thickness to it. Yeah, yeah, we'll go to get back to our food science days.

I've seen multiple times kids using high protein yogat tubes like the Yopros, the Shabani, which can have ten, fifteen, twenty grams of protein per serve, and I want to really stress that they are not appropriate for children. So the recommendation for protein intake for kids is actually really really low. It's less than a gram peculo, and so if your child is having twenty grams of protein in a yogurt, in some cases, they'll be getting more than

their entire daily intake recommended of protein. So I wanted to really talk about that and to say high protein for kids are not appropriate, and I wouldn't be giving a high protein yogurt until someone was in adolescents and gone through their major growth spurts, so someone in high school.

They are inappropriate for primary school age children. So be very careful of that, because if you're buying one type of yogurt for the family or just a few tubes, and you're used to giving one to the kids, they're way way too high in terms of calorie intake and

protein intake. So just be really mindful of that, because I don't think they're differentiated for adults and children well enough in the market, and I think you could easily be buying the protein based yogas for the family without thinking, oh, hang on a second, my child's only eight and it's way too much protein perserve.

Let me actually just do a quick Google just to give you a reference point, because, yeah, I think in this age of high protein products, it can be easy to think that more is better, and it's really important to know that small children do not need a lot of protein in their diet. You know, for example, breast milk is really low in protein, and that's why we've got to be really careful. So I'm having a very

quick look. Children age four to nine nineteen grams of protein and daily in yeah, wow, it's not a lot those between nine and thirteen and thirty four. So if you've got a nine year old and you're giving them a high protein they're having more than half their daily intake of protein in a single snack. So we'll say

it very clearly. Protein yogurts are not appropriate for children, not until you're a teenager, and an ideally a teenager who's gone through a major gross But it would I ever be recommending a protein based yogurt, So make sure that you are choosing natural, plain fruit yogurts with no added sugar, and if you are opting for these pouches, you certainly do want to look for ones that contain no added sugars and ideally have a kid's formulation that

doesn't that keeps those nutritionals as they should, which is relatively low, or as I do it my own homely and just use the natural yogurt and add some fruit and things to it. If I'm doing it as a dessert or making of course frozen yogurt ice blocks, I just get the natural. I think activ has got a natural. They're harder to find, but you can get them. ACTV has got a natural. I think Valley has got just a natural. If you look that's not flavored. One was

a good one as well, yep. And then you can just put them into the ice cream pops with some fruit, mix it around and the kids love that, and it's ticking the box on key nutrients like calcium without too much of any of those things like the added sugars, and certainly the protein in the case of higher protein yogurts.

less plastic we can buy the better. So if you can buy the big tubs of a family on the weekends or at night time after dinner and not use these small pouches, you're going to save yourself a heck a lot of money, You're going to help the environment,

and you're gonna need a lot less sugar. In buying something like a standard you know, just a plain yogurt where you can then add natural based fruit to sweeten that as well, I think is a lot healthy eruption, a lot more affordable, and but of the environment overall, very true, very true.

so just be careful with that, all right. That brings us to the Nutrition Couch product review for another weekly And if you haven't done so already, don't forget to subscribe to have this deliver it every Sunday or Wednesday morning. We have our social sites running and we love to get your feedback, and in particular, if we've missed any great kids yogurts, please let us know and we'll come back to them at another stage and we will see you on Sunday morning. Have a great week, have.