Friday 30 January 2015

Which one will you choose?


As a mum of a 4 year old boy when you are out and about finding something suitable for them to drink can be quite difficult especially when you have a fussy eater like I do.
I don’t like to give my child fizzy drinks, preferring to give him a squash based drink when possible.

Fortunately for me my son does really enjoy the Fruit Shoot range and when we received the latest Bzz Agent kit he was very excited to join in the campaign with me.
I always prefer to offer something to my son where no added sugar is involved so the Robinson’s Fruit Shoot range has always seemed like a healthy choice and is usually widely available in child friendly food places and is the alternative to fizzy drinks in places such as McDonald’s. However just because they are widely available are they the healthy alternative to fizzy drinks that I am led to believe?

With there currently being a huge buzz around reducing the amount of sugar in our diets I was interested to see where the Robinson’s range sits and it appears that Robinson’s have took notice of this with the introduction of the No Added Sugar range rather than providing the standard Fruit Shoot ranges which offered 10g of sugar and the low sugar version which offered 2.4g of sugar the replacement range of Fruit Shoot No Added Sugar contain 1.6g of sugar in comparison.

Britvic, which manufacturers Robinsons Fruit Shoots, provide clear nutritional information on all of their packs to help you to make an informed decision.
The Fruit Shoot Hydro a now offers 0g of sugar making it the healthier option and were the one’s I was looking at trying with my son as they seemed the healthier alternative for him in the long term.

First of all we tried the 200ml Fruit Shoot in Orange flavour, previously when I have tasted these they have always tasted overly sweet and not a drink that I enjoyed to sample, however to my 4 year old he really enjoyed the sweet taste and within about 10 minutes he had finished the drink.
Watching him drink I could tell that he didn’t really notice too much difference and he would have mentioned if he did not like the taste so it certainly passed his taste test. For me I found it was much easier to drink as the overbearing sweetness seemed to have been reduced but would still not be my drink of choice.

The next day we opted to try the Fruit Shoot Hydro. I myself had often looked at these in the supermarket and wondered about trying them with my son. We had received the Apple and Blackcurrant version to sample and although he did not drink it as rapidly as he had the Fruit Shoot he still enjoyed it, pointing out that it was water as he obviously recognised that there was no colour to the liquid but as he tasted it he like the flavour and again it had passed the taste test with my son asking to have more of these in the future.

As the Fruit Shoot Hydro is a sugar free still water drink this definitely appeals to me as a parent but the fact that it contains artificial sweeteners still causes me a slight area for concern. From the list of ingredients the Hydro contains Sweeteners (Sucralose, Acesulfame K) which has been rumoured to be a danger to health in the long term but having looked at the information published on the NHS Website it has been approved for use and considering that my son would not be drinking several of these each day and would more likely to be one or two in a month time frame this is not a huge concern to me at present.
I tried this drink and found it to be the best tasting of the three, it was not too sweet to the taste and I felt it was a healthy alternative to the other Fruit Shoot range.

The final drink that my son tried a few days later was the Fruit Shoot MY-5, again another drink I have looked at for my son as it boasts containing one of your child’s five a day. Now I am sure many mothers can relate about the worries we have about our children eating the right foods and often struggle in getting them to eat fresh fruit and sometimes vegetables so I can see how this can appeal to parents.
The MY-5 is 80% fruit juice mixed with a splash of water and contains no artificial colours, flavourings, sweeteners or preservatives so seems to offer an overall healthy drink, but take a look at the packaging and this drink offers a whopping 17g of sugar that’s 4 teaspoons of sugar!
Although the drink appeals as being the healthy option and appears to be a good way to get your child to have one of their 5 a day for me as a parent the level of sugar at such a young age could lead to other issues such as tooth decay so I don’t think we will be purchasing any more in the near future.
I found the drink a bit too rich for my taste and although the flavours tasted  the most natural out of the three products offered in the Fruit Shoot range, I just couldn't justify providing that much sugar to myself let alone a 4year old boy.

Out of the 3 drinks that my son sampled he preferred to drink the Fruit Shoot Hydro which for me I will look to switch over from the Fruit Shoot No Added Sugar due to the lower sugar levels but with the concern over sweeteners I would not like to offer him too many.

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Aldi's sweet treat

So Christmas has been and gone and this year Santa left us a box of choccies courtesy of Aldi.
Moserroth Privat Chocolatiers in gold embossed print on the midnight blue box.
The box boasts "Luxurious Chocolate Collection" An indulgent collection of velvety and silky smooth milk, dark and white chocolate.
I am not normally a lover of boxes of chocolates but these appeared to offer some delightful flavours a selection of a total of 18 chocolates:

Coffee Cream
Silky Fudge
Crunchy Honeycomb
Coconut Temptation
Turkish Delight
Lemon Zest
Raspberry Divine

I am always a little bit sceptical of unbranded chocolate so I was pleasantly suprised when I tried the Silky Fudge and for a brief moment thought I was tucking into Dairy Box not a box bought from Aldi so the quality more than matches the competition.
The flavours are not too overpowering and even the dreaded Coffee Cream was fairly enjoyable.
Definately one to add to next years Christmas list.