We all know that fruits are sugary, but had you any idea that some of these fruity snacks were so very high in sugar? Some of the results are truly, positively, outrageous!
We all try and sneak a little bit of extra fruit into our kids' diets somewhere or other. Whether it's in their lunchbox, as a car journey snack or a little after lunch treat, pre-packaged fruit snacks are a great way of squeezing more of your kids five-a-day into their diet.
We all know that fruits are sugary, but had you any idea that some of these fruit snacks for kids were so, so high in sugar?!
We can forgive the snacks which contain only natural sugars, but as for those with added sugar, well they're not so sweet.
We've taken a look at these popular fruit snacks for kids and pitted them against the guideline daily amounts for kids between the ages of five and 10. And some of the results are really surprising. You will never guess what comes out as the most sugary of all...
Flick through our gallery and see which products shocked you the most. You might decide you're better off just giving them a plain old apple after reading this...
By the way, the nutritional information we've used in our round-up is per serving and the prices we've quoted are the best ones we could find on mysupermarket.co.uk.
Did you find these figures shocking? Let us know by leaving us a comment in the box below.
Sun-Maid raisins
Ahh Sun-Maid raisins! Surely that happy smiley lady can do no wrong? Well, the good news is that this little box of raisins is exactly that, and nothing else. However, who knew that raisins are so sugary? This little snack has the most amount of sugar in one portion than all the fruit snacks we've looked at.
Cals: 90
Fat: free!
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 22g
Sugar: 20g - highest sugar content - almost a quarter of their GDA
Salt: free!
Fibre: 2g
Weight: 28g box
Price: £2.43 for 6
Asda Loopy Lime flavoured raisins
Here they are again, those naughty raisins. Second in our round up of the best and worst fruit snacks for kids are Asda's tasty, but ever so sugary, flavoured raisins. They contain a whopping 16.5g of sugar in a 25g pack.
Cals: 73
Fat: trace
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 16.5g
Sugar: 16g - 18% of their guideline daily amount of sugar
Salt: trace
Fibre: 1g
Weight: 25g pack
Price: 50p
Fruit Bowl Fruit Peelers Blackcurrant
We have to say something about this packet stirred our sugar senses, and looks like we were right! A huge amount of a 20 gram fruit peeler is sugar. Thankfully though there are no added sugars, so those found in these fruit snacks are ones that occur naturally.
Cals: 68
Fat: 0.2g
Saturated fat: trace
Carbohydrate: 15.7g
Sugar: 15.7g - 17% of their guideline daily amount of sugar
Salt: free!
Fibre: 1.5g
Weight: 20g peeler
Price: £1.69 for 3
Fruit Bowl Yogurt Fruit Flakes Strawberry
We have to admit we love these yogurt fruit flakes just as much as the kids do. But how sad we are (although not wholly unsurprised) to learn that they're pretty darn sugary. Over three teaspoons of the stuff, to be precise.
Cals: 112
Fat: 5.2g - second highest fat content
Saturated fat: 3g
Carbohydrate: 16g
Sugar: 13.8g - 15% of their guideline daily amount of sugar
Salt: free!
Fibre: 0.5g
Weight: 25g pack
Price: £2 for 5
Fruit Bowl Fruit Flakes Strawberry
Oh how sad this makes us. Just when we were thinking it would be ok to swap the yogurt-coated version for their less yogurty counterpart, we discover that these only contain 0.8g less sugar than the others. But they are completely free of sat fats, salt, and are one of your five-a-day. Don't be fooled into thinking that the sugar content is due to them being made with real fruit though, as unfortunately they do have added sugar.
Cals: 66
Fat: 0.4g
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 15.6g
Sugar: 13g - includes added sugars
Salt: free!
Fibre: 0.6g
Weight: 20g per pack
Price: 45p
Eat Natural Fruit and Nut Bar Almond & Apricot
We love these fruity snack bars which are easy for the kids to eat on the go. However, we're not such a fan of those numbers! Just the one bar contains over a quarter of your little one's GDA of saturates. Granted, nuts are fatty and this bar contains almonds. But it also harbours 12 grams of sugar!
Cals: 160
Fat: 8.6g - highest fat content!
Saturated fat: 5.7g - 29% of their guideline daily amount of saturates
Carbohydrate: 18.5g
Sugar: 12g
Salt: free!
Fibre: 2g
Weight: 35g bar
Price: 85p
Vimto Fruit Loops
Good old fashioned Vimto. They wouldn't hide any nasty surprises from us, would they?! Well, generally, these Vimto Fruit Loops are pretty healthy. They're fat, sat fat, and salt free. However be aware that a pack of these contains more sugar than you'd find in a treat-size Milky Way.
Cals: 68
Fat: free!
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 15.48g
Sugar: 12g
Salt: free!
Fibre: Trace
Weight: 20g pack
Price: £1.89 for 5
The Fruit Factory Fruit Stars
Kids absolutely love these little star-shaped fruit snacks, but with over 9 grams of sugar, we're starting to understand why they're always on such a high afterwards!
Cals: 61
Fat: trace
Saturated fat: trace
Carbohydrate: 14.8g
Sugar: 9.4g - contains over 2 teaspoons of sugar
Salt: free!
Fibre: 0.4g
Weight: 20g pack
Price: £1.99 for 5
Fruit Bowl School Bars Raspberry
These school bars are so easy to pop into a lunch box for a fruity school time treat. But beware there are over 2 teaspoons of sugar in these little snacks. But a good, steady amount of slow energy releasing carbohydrates that'll give kids some energy for too, and hopefully counter that sugar crash.
Cals: 67
Fat: 0.6g
Saturated fat: 0.4g
Carbohydrate: 15g
Sugar: 9g - 10% of their guideline daily amount of sugar
Salt: free!
Fibre: 1.2g
Weight: 20g bar
Price: £1.98 for 5
Kiddilicious Banana Bites
Don't these banana bites look tasty? Due to their crispy nature these are higher in fat, but thankfully contain barely any saturated fat. This is the first fruity snack we've come across yet that contains less than 2 teaspoons of sugar. But we have to credit them for being nothing but banana slices, some vegetable oil, all natural sugars and no added salt.
Cals: 65
Fat: 3.2g
Saturated fat: 0.6g
Carbohydrate: 8.9g
Sugar: 7.4g
Salt: trace
Fibre: 1g
Weight: 15g bag
Price: 59p
Kiddylicious Tropical Fruit Wriggles
These little fruity shapes aren't too bad, and they only contain naturally occurring sugars found in fruit.
Cals: 41g
Fat: 0.1g
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 9.3g
Sugar: 6.1g
Salt: trace
Fibre: 0.9g
Weight: 12g bag
Price: 59p
Kellogg's Fruit Winders Doubles
We have to admit, we love Kellogg's Winders! They're really fun for kids as they unwravel on a fun piece of comic strip-style paper, and certainly provide a bit more entertainment than your average fruit snack. We have to say we were quite surprised at that 1.5 grams of fat though, we hoped these'd be fat free.
Cals: 66
Fat: 1.5g
Saturated fat: 0.6g
Carbohydrate: 13g
Sugar: 6g - 7% of their guideline daily amount of sugar
Salt: trace
Fibre: 0.3g
Weight: 17g per Winder
Price: £1.80 for 6
HumZingers 100% Fruit Sticks
Now we're getting somewhere. These HumZingers haven't done too badly here. They're so low in fat and saturates, salt free and contain 2 grams of fibre. They're still pushing more than a teaspoon full of sugar per stick, but they get brownie points for being made of 100% fruit.
Cals: 39
Fat: 0.1g
Saturated fat: 0.1g
Carbohydrate: 9.2g
Sugar: 5.9g
Salt: free!
Fibre: 2g - 13% of your child's GDA
Weight: 15g per stick
Price: £1.99 for 5
Bear Yo Yos Strawberry
We had faith in that little bear and he's not let us down. Virtually fat free, salt free, and 8% of your child's guideline daily amount of fibre, we can forgive that 4.9g of sugar. They contain real strawberries, pears, a little bit of veg, and absolutely nothing else, so all that sugar is only what you'd find naturally in those ingredients.
Cals: 27
Fat: trace
Saturated fat: free!
Carbohydrate: 6.3g
Sugar: 4.9g
Salt: free!
Fibre: 1.2g
Weight: 10g per roll
Price: £2.29 for 5
Where to next?- 10 ways to get fruit into their lunchbox
- Ridiculous reasons my toddler had a tantrum - hilarious!
