Cleaning house

I spent this morning cleaning out our ‘snack shelf’. I needed to do this anyway- the shelf is too high for me to reach to the back and there are things in there of which I know not- the ghost of snack attacks past. I found some candy canes from Christmas two years ago. They were probably still good (do candy canes go off?) but I chucked them out anyway, along with

•         Two packs of ‘Double-D’ candies. Completely disgusting anyway, but also made with Isomalt, a low calorie sweetener which acts body just like sugar with approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

•         Two packs of 'Sultry Sally' 97% fat free potato chips (salt and vinegar). Most flavoured chips have sugar in the flavouring so I was surprised and a little excited to see that these used dextrose (glucose). Then I realised that they a) contain MSG for no good reason and b) taste like cardboard. So, I chucked them.

•         Three individual snack packs of apricots in juice by Weight Watchers. No sugar added and only half a WW Point each (I think under the new ‘Pro Points’ system they are worth 0 points). But, sweetened with cyclamate and saccharin, artificial sweeteners which don’t act like fructose in the body (as far as we know) but which I can probably do without anyway. 

Goodbye ‘diet’ snacks. You won’t be missed. My snacks now (in case you are wondering) are things like popcorn, plain potato chips, nuts, rice crackers etc- as well as fruit, cheese, etc. Yummier and healthier snacks than the manufactured crap I used to eat in the name of my diet. I haven’t felt the need to snack as much as usual, anyway, which is great news.

I’ve also had a good look the snacks I give my son, who is 12 months old. I must admit that my attention previously was on the salt, rather than the sugar. Babies' kidneys can’t cope with salt in the same way that adults do, and it is dangerous for them to have large amounts. The Food Standard Agency, UK says that toddlers 1-3 years can cope with 2 grams of salt per day (0.8 grams of sodium) max.

So that's salt, but I'm off the sugar grid, remember? So, of course I'm now interested in sugar for toddlers. It's hard to find recommendations about the daily intake of sugar for this age group. The 'Toddler Healthy Food Pyramid' on Kidspot doesn't even mention sugars. And the information on the Raising Children Network site is also sparse in this respect. Perhaps we are all pretending that the only sugars littlies will come across are the natural ones in fruit and vegetables, and the lactose in milk and dairy? Please. If you expect toddlers to have no foods with added sugar, then say NO FOODS WITH ADDED SUGAR. 

Well anyway, what’s in our cupboard? My son is still at the age where he eats plain rice cakes enthusiastically, and I haven't ventured far into commercial snack packs or bars so far. The ones I had bought, though, included a few hidden nasties from a sugar perspective. Rafferty’s Garden Fruit Snack Bars (recommended for 12 months plus), a former favourite, turned out to be 40% sugar. Some of this is the (dried and concentrated) apple paste, but if you look at the ridiculously long list of ingredients that these bars contain, sugar is listed twice (added to the ‘fruit paste’ and to the biscuity outer layer of the bar). At 6.5 grams of sugar per serve, baby gets about 1.5 teaspoons of sugar in a tiny bar. Yum! 

Sultanas are another suspect food in terms of sugar, unfortunately. When someone opened a container of sultanas at mothers group this week, the babies all channeled their inner locust, swarming over and devouring as many as they could. I don't think I've met a baby of this age who doesn't love their 'tanas. Sultanas are 100% fruit, of course, but with all the water removed they are 80% sugar instead of the 20% sugar of the grape that made them. The usual story with fruit is that the fibre content, as well as the overall bulk (mostly water) of fruit limits the damage from the fructose that they contain. It fills you up, naturally limiting the amount of fructose you can eat in one sitting. You might eat a medium orange (about 7 grams of fructose), you might even find room for two (14 g fructose), but you probably wouldn't want your dinner afterwards. Compare how easily you (or your one year old) can eat a 40g packet of sultanas (about 13g fructose) and still find room for more. 

I'm not binning the 'tanas, in case you were wondering. We're just having them as an occasional treat instead of an everyday snack. The Rafferty's bars are gone though. Now we need some new ideas before the rice cakes get old- I'm always happy to hear new ideas for toddler snacks, so please feel free to post your suggestions below. [Thanks to those who pointed out that the comments weren't working for everyone- I had it on the wrong settings. I've fixed this now, so it should be easy to comment if you want to]. 

All in all, a good day's work. I know I'm not going to be able to keep my baby off the sugar grid at all times, but at least now I’ve made sure the snackables for both of us are as healthy as possible :)