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Bellamy’s Organic Apple Snacks | Chewsday Review

These Bellamy’s Organic Apple Snacks are the talk of the town this week, after appearing in Magda Szubanski’s new show - Big National Health Check. Magda is setting out to work out why our nation is “so unhealthy”. We see her shocked reaction to a “health expert” smashing the dried apple pieces with a spoon, declaring that we’re feeding our children “concentrated sugar.” So are these apple snacks part of the “shocking truths” that Magda is uncovering? Or is this just more unnecessary food shaming? Fresh fruit is always my top option, but where do these fit? Here’s my take… (please read the whole review, as tempting as it is to be outraged by what you think you see!)

Ingredients

Positives

Let’s start with the sugar, as this is the big sticking point (haha get it?!) This snack has 5.1 g per serve coming from the naturally occurring sugar in apples. The scare factor comes from the nutrition panel- the sugar content is 51g/100g. On face value it looks bad but remember that it’s only the sugar already in the piece of fruit. Let me be crystalline clear (too much?!) Sugar in fruit is NOT a problem! Diet culture will have you believe otherwise, but as a paediatric dietitian I am not concerned about this sugar.
Dried fruit always brings up a lot of opinions. Yes, dried fruit has a higher proportion of sugar than fresh whole fruit (51g/100g vs 10-15g/100g). This is because dried fruit has all of the water removed, and water accounts for most of the weight of a fresh piece of fruit (water makes up 85% of fresh apple!) That means 15g of fresh apple will contain 12.75g water and 2.25g of sugar/fibre/nutrients, whereas 15g of dried fruit will be 15g of sugar/fibre/nutrients.
To be clear (again), it’s not added sugar. If you were to have 8 slices of this apple, it would have the same amount of sugar as 8 slices of fresh apple.
In this product there’s 1.4g of fibre per serve, providing 10% of the recommended daily intake for toddlers. Fibre by weight is higher than fresh apple, using the same reasoning as above, but there will be the same amount of fibre in these as in the same number of slices of fresh apple.
Fat and salt content within healthy guidelines.

Negatives

Freeze drying apple takes out water but adds in cost. A fresh apple is 1/3 of the price of these pieces!
They’re not big servings, so you’ll need to add something else to make this a filling snack.
We don’t know enough about the impact of this food on teeth- dried fruit has always got a bad rap for its stickiness, but I haven’t seen any good evidence for freeze dried fruit. As always, serve with other foods, offer water to drink and brush teeth regularly.

Marketing

No added sugar, no artificial colours and flavours – all true.
“Uses a freeze-dried technology to lock in the natural goodness of fresh apples” – Yes true, effectively the fruit’s water content is reduced at very low pressure compared to traditional drying, allowing the fruit structure to be maintained. As the moisture is removed from the apple, the freeze-dried slices become crispy and dissolvable and weigh much less than the fresh slices.

Alternatives

I think the ‘experts’ have got it wrong here. This is not a food to fear, and while I actually don’t believe any food is to fear, this does not deserve to be demonised on TV.
If your child really struggles to eat fruit, this food is an awesome stepping stone to build confidence with apples. The dry, dissolvable texture and sweet flavour are often easier for kids with strong sensory preferences who really struggle with new foods. We use food like this all the time in feeding therapy.
Whilst fresh fruit is always a top option, this would be a great food for an emergency nappy bag stash, plane travel or those days when you just haven’t been to the grocery shops.