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Messy Monkeys Yoghurt Drink | Chewsday Review

Messy Monkeys are EVERYWHERE at the moment. They’ve got a new yoghurt drink available on the shelves, so let’s see whether it gets a Chewsday tick of approval!

Ingredients

Milk, Sugar, Prebiotic fibre, Stabilisers (modified starch, agar, pectin), natural vanilla flavour, Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, Streptococcus Thermophilus
Common allergens include: milk
This product contains probiotics and prebiotics. PRObiotics are good bacteria or yeasts that can improve the balance of good bacteria in the gut. PREbiotics on the other hand are the food for PRObiotics and they reach the large bowel without being digested. The fibre in this product helps to feed the good bugs.

Positives

Negatives

There’s a lot of added sugar in this drink. Regular milk will naturally have some sugar (as lactose) and I’d expect the amount to be about 4g/100mL. This yoghurt drink is 11.9g/100ml, which means about 8g/100g (or 16g per pack) is just added sugar. That’s almost 4 tsp of added sugar and a lot more than most flavoured milks or yoghurts.
Saturated fat content exceeds nutritional guidelines for drinks at 2.1g per 100ml. Recommendations suggest aiming for less than 1.5g of saturated fat per 100ml. The reason that this exceeds guidelines, is because it uses full cream milk rather than reduced fat or HiLo milk. This is appropriate for under two year olds, but I prefer to recommend HiLo milk for older kids.
NOTE: The nutritional criteria for assessing drinks is more strict than for assessing food. This is partly because calories consumed in drinks are less well recognised by the body, as compared to those in food. This can mean that we often drink more without it contributing to our sense of fullness. If this product was a food, it would meet healthy guidelines.

Marketing

A source of protein. Yes true. Remember though, that ‘source of protein’ means that it’s got some protein in it (even if it’s a tiny amount). In this case, it’s got 6g per pack which is equivalent to a yoghurt pack.
‘Hidden goodness of prebiotics.’ As I explained above, PREbiotics are the food for our good bacteria. You can also find prebiotic components in onions, leeks, celery, oats and legumes. You don’t need a specific drink like this.

Alternatives