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Latina Fresh Kids Ravioli | Chewsday Review

Lots of families like to use Latina Ravioli as an easy weeknight meal. There's a Kids version, so surely that makes it a good option for your kiddos. Let's see...

Ingredients

Positives

Negatives

Technically these ravioli fit within healthy guidelines for sodium. But, it does contain added salt, as well as containing cheese (which is naturally salty). So I was surprised to see the nutrition information panel states that the ravioli contains a fairly low amount of sodium at 280mg of per 100g of pasta, which is below recommendations of less than 400mg of sodium per 100g.
However, I think 280mg is actually lower than the true content, and possibly slightly misleading. In this case, the uncooked product weighs 200g and serves 2. But each serve is actually 160g because it absorbs water during cooking. So realistically, 100g of uncooked pasta makes 160g of cooked dinner. But, interestingly the nutritional info is based on the cooked pasta, which includes 37.5% water by weight- which likely dilutes the readings per 100g (which we normally compare to the guidelines). So, long story short, I think the per serve numbers actually give a more realistic salt content to use for comparison. That means that the true sodium content is more like 448mg per 100g for the dry pasta- which is a bit higher than recommendations. Most families would also serve this with extra grated cheese and even a pasta sauce, so you can see how the salt can really add up.

Marketing

“Australian made cheddar” & “Proudly Australian made since 1994”. They’re highlighting that this product is made in Australia from Australian ingredients – great, but the ingredients aren’t 100% Australian. To be fair, 95% is pretty close.
“Filling includes 5 vegetables”. This product makes a big deal about it containing 5 veggies, but it only makes up 10% of the product. Now what does 10% mean? Well, in 100g of uncooked pasta (which is the suggested serving size), you get 10g of veggies. So if the veggies were added in equal amounts, then that’s 2g of each vegetable listed in the ingredient list. This works out to ~0.1 of a serve which meets 4% of a toddler’s daily vegetable requirements. So yes, technically some veggies, but if you’re buying this product for the vegetable content then don’t bother.
I also find it interesting that these ravioli are marketed as being especially for kids. The ingredients are pretty much the same for the regular versions, except this version is slightly lower in salt. What really works me up is this Kids version is $6 for 200g ($30 per kg) whereas the adult versions are $8 for 375g ($21 per kg) or $11 for 625g ($18 per kg).

Alternatives

There’s no denying the convenience of this pasta, and while it contains a decent amount of fibre, it is quite salty.
This pasta now states it is not suitable for children under 12 months, which is likely due to the salt content. For babies, offering regular wheat pasta with no filling is a much lower salt option (~30mg per 100g).
For the rest of the family, you may as well get the family size pack, which are much cheaper, and add a tomato or veggie based sauce or mix in some chopped veggies.