I was recently invited to an event promoting the “Little Bellies” range of snacks for toddlers and I snapped up the opportunity to attend as the subject of food labelling and marketing of so called “health” products is a particular area of interest for me.

There are a lot of products out there specifically marketed as being healthy for you and more incredulously healthy for your children, that have little or no nutrition value, yet somehow clever marketing and labelling will have you believe otherwise. It’s so interesting because only hours after coming home from this event I read an article by Paula Goodyer talking about this very subject. She mentioned specifically the “Healtheries” branded potato straws, using emotive words such as “75% less fat” and the very use if the word “healthy” in the brand name as implying that this was a health food. The problem is, potato straws are made out of little more than potato powder and palm oil. This is no health product, just another nutritionally vapid snack food. To be honest, you’d probably be better off with some Kettle Chips, at least then you wouldn’t be kidding yourself about making a healthy choice.

So I went to this product event with a big personal prejudice and I was determined not to go soft in my questions to brand founder Clive Sher. Clive was there with his wife and youngest boy and he was clearly passionate about the products and had a great belief in their integrity.

Mandy dos Santos, a food scientist and nutritionist  was there to explain the benefits of choosing Little Bellies. Mandy likes that the products are all very low in salt. She spoke at length about the current anti-sugar trend (of which I am a personal fan) and brought up an interesting point: in the quest to avoid sugar, perhaps we’re feeding our kids snacks that are unnecessarily high in sodium (salt). I’ve got to say that I’m probably guilty of that and it’s something I hadn’t really thought about too deeply. It’s especially important for babies and toddlers to have very low salt diets as their kidneys are not able to process the amount of salt in common adult snack foods (like chips and Shapes).

As for the sugar content of the products, they are sweetened with so called ‘natural’ sugars such as grape juice concentrate, brown rice syrup and agave nectar. Generally speaking most of the products are fairly low in sugar. For example, my son Sebastian who was with me at the event absolutely fell in love with the “Number Cereal” and positively this product has 4.4% sugar. (When I’m looking at nutrition panels, I try to make sure that products are under 5% sugar as a guide.) Another great product are the “Fiddlesticks” which are kind of like a yummy breadstick I guess (only 2.7% sugar). Some of the fruit bar products such as the “Fruity Choo Chews” are a whopping 46.4% sugar! Yes they are all natural and are made organic ingredients and no artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, yet for me personally, this is too much sugar in one product.

On the Little Bellies website Clive says,

With seven young children between us, we know how hard it is to find healthy foods that will satisfy fussy eaters, and how easy it is to be misled by ambiguous marketing claims when many so-called ‘healthy’ snacks are anything but healthy.

Clive told me that his family has been in the health products industry for over 30 years and it wasn’t until his brother’s oldest son had various food allergies that they were prompted to delve into making healthy snack foods that are better choices. One of the very pertinent points that Clive raised was that the Little Bellies products are snack foods, they’re not meant to replace real food, they are just there to be convenient and better snack choices for parents to have on hand. They are portion controlled to be just the right amount of energy for a toddler snack.

Mandy lead the group in some fun food related activities. We made these clever little ‘Hungry Caterpillars’ with slices of cucumber, cheese, capsicum and sultanas. A lot of the children who were there were crawling babies and let me tell you, there was a lot of mess. Mandy told us of her fondess for baby-led weaning which prompted a lot of discussion around this area and it was clear that a lot of the babies present were into discovering food. There were little hands into everything and smushed up food in the carpet to prove it. I think it was a great activity to show that food can be fun and interactive.

What I like about the products is that they don’t claim to be health foods, they are not sold in the health food aisle (like those Healtheries Potato Stix from earlier). They are a snack food that is trying to be quite transparent about the ingredients they use. They are certified organic, but that’s not a health claim, it’s just a fact that may or may not be important to you as a parent. Otherwise they compete with similar product by Heinz and other small snack brands and are found in the baby food section of the supermarket.

I think there is certainly a place for products like these, just use your head! It’s a snack food and treat it as you would any other snack food. Also, read the labels and make informed choices in relation to sugar, salt and additives.

Mandy said one thing that really resonated with me and I think if I can take anything away from the event to give to you my readers it’s this: when reading the nutrition and ingredients labelling on any products ask yourself,

Because let’s face it, sometimes we have the time to make things from scratch and sometimes we don’t.

Little Bellies products are available at Woolworths, Coles, IGA, and healthfood shops. 

Visit their website for more information.

I received free product samples for this review and was not paid or required to write this post. All opinions are my own.

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