Cruskits Original | Chewsday Review

An absolute classic- Cruskits! Let's find out if this lightly puffed crispbread blows my mind or leaves me puffed out.

Ingredients

Positives

As expected for a savoury cracker these have a low sugar content. They do contain a little added sugar, but it’s very minimal.
Sodium (salt) content is 367mg per 100g, which isn’t super low, especially when you compare to something like Baby Mum-Mums, which have 17mg per 100g for their vegetable rusks. But when we consider that 2 Cruskits only contains 46mg of sodium, this is fairly low and comes to about 25% of recommended daily sodium intake for babies.
Cruskits have a melt in the mouth texture, which can be useful for teaching biting and chewing skills to babies and young children.
Cost-wise these are $4 per box, which comes to $32 per kg. That’s more expensive than lots of home brand rice cakes and crackers, but Baby Mum-Mum graduates will be pleased to no longer spend over $100 per kg on crackers!
These come in a box with a plastic liner for freshness, but this means far less individual packaging than Baby Mum-Mums which are wrapped in pairs. This could be a negative for some families that enjoy the convenience of pre-packaged portions, but it is kinder to the environment.

Negatives

The saturated fat content slightly exceeds recommendations at 3.9g per 100g. Having said that, given how light Cruskits are, it really doesn’t provide that much in the scheme of things.
Fibre is pretty minimal. For children no longer needing a bite and dissolve texture, Woolworths Thin Corn Cake With Brown Rice and Arnott’s Multigrain VitaWeat Crackers (the round ones) contain about 2-3 times the fibre.

Marketing

“No artificial colours or flavours”. True, but this is not much of a claim when most savoury crackers are the same.
“Lightly puffed and toasted”. Sure.
“51 calories per serve”. This is more aimed at adults who might be trying to reduce their energy intake, so not really relevant here, but I’d love if it wasn’t featured on the front packaging.
“3.5 health stars”. I suspect in this case they’ve lost stars because of the low fibre, and higher saturated fat and moderate salt content.

Alternatives

Similarly to Baby Mum-Mums, Cruskits contain some carbohydrates, but are fairly low in other key nutrients, so I wouldn’t recommend offering them on their own regularly. If you’re serving them alongside other foods or with some kind of topping or spread they can be a convenient addition to meals or snacks.
For young babies I often recommend topping them with leftover puree to help them soften more quickly.
For older babies or toddlers, rice or corn cakes tend to be higher in fibre, but do require more advanced biting and chewing skills, so are not suitable for young babies.
Need more help comparing and choosing crackers? All of my memberships have access to my guide to choosing crackers and crispbreads, plus other food products to make your supermarket trip more simple.

The composition of food products changes regularly. The nutritional values of the products in this Chewsday Review were correct at the time of publishing.