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Milk Arrowroot Biscuits | Chewsday Review

It’s seen as the biscuit you can give to kids if you don’t really want to give them an actual biscuit. It’s so plain that it surely can’t be too bad. In fact, traditionally it’s been given to babies who are learning to eat. It’s the humble Milk Arrowroot. Today's Chewsday Review dishes the dirt. Let’s have a closer look at Arnott’s Milk Arrowroots…

Ingredients

Wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, condensed milk, salt, baking powder, arrowroot flour, emulsifier (soy lecithin) antioxidant (E307B from soy)
Soy lecithin acts to keep the texture consistent in the biscuit and is generally well-tolerated. E307B is an antioxidant from Vitamin E and stops the food from spoiling- also well tolerated.
Common allergens include: Wheat, milk and soy (interestingly- some other brands of ‘milk’ arrowroot biscuits don’t actually contain any milk!)

Positives

Sodium (salt) content is less than the upper recommended level, but at 270mg/100g it’s still reasonably high for a sweet product. So this is half positive, half negative.
The biscuits soften easily with a bit of saliva, making them easy to chew (this is why babies have long been trusted with milk arrowroots).
Compared to ‘baby biscuits’ (which I don’t believe should be a thing!) these are much cheaper.

Negatives

Total fat content just exceeds recommended guidelines at 10.8g per 100g, but the saturated fat is almost double the upper limit of recommendation at 5.4g/100g.
Sugar content exceeds healthy guidelines at 22.1g/100g. This is all from added sugar. These biscuits have a similar amount of sugar to most ‘baby’ biscuits on the market (pretty shocking hey?) In 3 biscuits this works out to be about a teaspoon of sugar.

Marketing

Alternatives

These biscuits are basically flour held together with sugar, oil and condensed milk. They’re not nutritious in any way, shape or form. The plainness hides a nutritional profile that fails my review, and they’re not something I would offer my baby by choice. However, if a grandparent was to give your child a biscuit like this occasionally then I wouldn’t panic. It’s certainly not the end of the world.
As an alternative, consider a pikelet, muffin or something with a bit more nutritious value!