A case of buyer beware

Whilst out riding my bike this week, I listened to this first part of this podcast where Drs van Tulleken are interviewed about what consitutes a portion and the concept of the “junk food cycle”. Skip to 1.33 where the interview starts.

Also this week, a comment about the sugar content of squeezy yoghurt packs and how they are marketted to carers, popped up in my “dental Twitter”

I’d never thought much about squeezy packs of yoghurt as they came along after my children were of that age and I wouldn’t have bought them anyway. They are pervasive now and it seems that our lust for convenience means that even though they are marketted for kids consumption, ipso facto to the mothers'; I’m sure there’s plenty of adults chucking them in the gym bag or work bag as a convenient portable snack.

I subconciously carried out an A/B test when my daughters were young. With the first child I was committed, no sugar sweetned food for her and she ate natural Greek yoghurt. She didn’t have a Smartie until her 1st birthday! By the time the second one came along I had softened my approach a little and there was some occasional fruit flavoured yoghurt in the house, but mostly eldest ate the Greek yoghurt happily.

Anyhow, I made the mistake of giving my second daughter some fruit yoghurt early in the weaning process. She NEVER ate the plan Greek, NEVER; would not take it. The damage had been done with that first sweet taste.

There’s a lot wrong with the marketting of flavoured yogurts. Look at this one, “Kids” “Boost immunity” bright colours and healthy looking fruit.

And yet this pouch contains 12.5g sugars, (8.9%). The serving size is 140g.

In contrast the homebrand 5.4g sugars, (7.7%), serving size 70g.

Its worth having taking the time to check through a few, here’s a link to the woolworths website.

I have never really taken foods like this into consideration when discussing diet with patients or their parents. When chatting with one of my OHTs this week whilst researching this, she hadn’t either. We scanned through a few sample products on the web and were amazed, not sure that’s the right word, with the sugar content of some of the brands.

This was our favorite high scoring pouch, most probaby aimed at the health conscious female, less than 0.5% fat but has a whacking great 17.1g sugars in that pouch. It is authenticly strained though!

Choice recently reviewed yoghurt pouches and highlighted a few things to look out for with regards to sugars, protein content etc; there is a helpful infographic in that article.

Serving size comes into play as well. It doesn’t take much effort to chug down one of these pouches, compared to spooning some in from a pot and there could be a temptaion to buy the larger size if it works out cheaper.

It’s Dental Health Week soon and we have our sugar content board on display in the waiting room; might just be adding some yogurt pouches to it this week.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

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