Lunchbox snacks

Eating healthy food helps children concentrate and learn, so a nutritious lunch is important. But our survey found many products marketed as ideal lunchbox fillers are high in saturated fat, sugar or sodium.

Sugar

All the bars and biscuits, and most of the packaged fruit products we looked at got a red light for sugar. Added sugar (not occurring naturally in fruit or plain milk) provides energy but no nutrients. It also contributes to tooth decay, especially the sticky fruit bars that can get stuck in teeth.

In some products, the sugar was from real fruit or vegetables.

Four products (Cinderella California Raisins, Kiwigarden Apple Slices, Kiwigarden Sweet Corn Kernels and Sunbeam Sultana and Cranberry) were 100% fruit or vege.

Bliss balls and dried fruit and nut snack packs don’t have added sugar either – though you don’t want to stack your child’s lunchbox with dried fruit because it’s high in sugar and sticks to teeth.

However, don’t be tricked into thinking all “fruit” products are equal. Bluebird Real Fruit Bars contain 27% fruit plus sugar, icing sugar and glucose. Essential’s Fruit Bars have 25% fruit, but their main ingredient is sugar.

Pams Fruit O’s and Nice & Natural Fruit Zombies claim to be made with 65% fruit juice but with their added glucose syrup and sugar, they are a poor substitute for a piece of fruit.

Sodium

A 5- to 6-year-old should have no more than 1400mg of sodium per day. But the sodium hit in a lunchbox can quickly add up. If you pop in a Little Ripper Mild Salami Stick, Pams Tasty Cheese Slice and packet of Shultz Mini Pretzels, that’s 60% of the recommended upper daily limit in just three snacks.

Check the nutrition information panel even if you’re buying the same product in a different flavour. Home Brand Cassava Vegetable Crisps Original BBQ have a half more sodium than the Original flavour. Processed cheese slices have more sodium than a cheese spread or cheese stick.

Saturated fat

Pams Tasty Cheese Slices were the highest in saturated fat – 18.9g per 100g. All the biscuits we looked at, and some crackers and chips, were also high in saturated fat. Better options include bagel bites, rice crackers and popcorn (although steer clear of buttery varieties, which will be higher in saturated fat).

Cheese products are high in saturated fat, although at least they provide calcium so have some merit. A yoghurt “suckie” or pouch will also provide calcium without the high levels of saturated fat. But check the ingredients list of yoghurts. Added sugar can make these products super sweet.

Pack size

Lunchbox fillers should be less than 600 kilojoules per serve. That’s about the equivalent kilojoules of a banana (although a banana will fill a kid up much more than these products, and they’ll also get extra fibre, vitamins and minerals).

The serving sizes of the bliss balls in our survey ranged from one Frooze Ball (14g) to 5 balls in the Tom & Luke Snackaballs packet (70g). If you ate the whole pack of Tom and Luke’s in one go, that’s the equivalent of 2 bananas.

Convenience costs

You’re often paying for the convenience of single-serve portions. We paid 50¢ for a 20g packet in a multi-pack of Peckish rice crackers. A 100g packet costs $2, which works out as 40¢ for a 20g portion. These small savings can add up over time – especially if you’re packing a few lunchboxes every day.

Fruit, popcorn and crackers can also be repackaged into leak-proof containers or other reusable packaging. This saves you money and you won’t be buying lots of unnecessary packaging.