Belvita Breakfast Biscuits | Chewsday Review
Milk and cereal in a convenient biscuit? That sounds cereal-sly too good to be true. Let's find out.
- Cereals 71% (Wheat Flour 50%, Wholegrain Cereals 21% (Wholegrain Wheat Flour 7%, Wholegrain Oats 8%, Wholegrain Barley Flour 3%, Wholegrain Rye Flour 2%, Wholegrain Spelt (Wheat) Flour 1%)), Sugar, Vegetable Oil (Contains Antioxidant (330)), Polydextrose, Milk Solids (1.1%), Raising Agents (500, 503, 504), Emulsifiers (Soy Lecithin, 472(e)), Flavours, Salt.
- That’s a long list, but essentially these biscuits contain flour, sugar, oil and salt, as well as additives mostly to enhance the texture.
- Allergens: wheat, gluten, milk, soy.
- May contain: egg, sesame.
- Dietary fibre is reasonable, at 3.2g per serve (4 biscuits). So if your child ate all of 4 biscuits, this would meet 24% of a toddler’s daily fibre requirements and 19% of an older child’s requirements.
- Sodium is below my target (90mg per 100g), as expected for a sweet product.
- Saturated fat is within healthy guidelines at 1.6g per 100g. Having said that, the origin of the oil is unclear so I suspect it’s palm oil.
- They’re shelf stable and convenient.
- These contain a fair amount of added sugar, so I’m not surprised sugar exceeds my recommendations at 20.2g per 100g.
- At $4.50 per pack, this works out to 75c per serve. A serving of oats and milk works out to about 45c and provides more calcium, less fat, less sugar, less salt and more fibre.
- “Biscuits made with 5 wholegrains”. True, even if one of those wholegrains only makes up 3g of the whole pack.
- “Kick start your day with Belvita as part of a balanced breakfast”. These are marketed as ‘food on the run’ but they still say it is “part” of breakfast, so you’d still have to add other components to make a “balanced” breakfast.
- Calling it “milk and cereals” seems a bit rich to me, given that it contains only 1% milk solids.
- Belvita Breakfast Biscuits are convenient and contain a decent amount of fibre, but are high in added sugar and have no calcium or added iron. They really don’t tick enough boxes as a stand-alone breakfast option.
- For a portable, ready-made breakfast option, Up&Go is higher in fibre, lower in sugar, and contains a decent amount of calcium (but still isn’t fortified with iron).
- Other on-the-go brekkie ideas could be dry Low Sugar Vanilla Cheerios, pikelets, fritters or muffins, and a smoothie or drink of milk. Mealtimes members have access to my complete breakfast guide to make mornings smoother.
The composition of food products changes regularly. The nutritional values of the products in this Chewsday Review were correct at the time of publishing.
