Want advanced access to my weekly Chewsday Reviews?

Every Tuesday morning receive the latest Chewsday Review delivered directly to your inbox.

Milo Original Snack Bar | Chewsday Review

Today’s Chewsday Review features the Milo original snack bar. Milo are the kings of clever marketing, so let’s see if they can get one past me here!

Ingredients

Whole grain wheat flour (22%), glucose syrup, wheat flour, formulated supplementary food base 10% (see below), invert sugar, modified starch (1412), maltodextrin, humectants (420, 422), vegetable oil (soy), malt extract, cocoa, sugar, flavour, emulsifier (471), salt, antioxidant (307b)
The “formulated supplementary food base” is just MILO and that contains extract of malted barley, milk solids, sugar, cocoa, calcium, iron, maltodextrin, vitamins (C, B3, A, B6, D, B2, B12), soy lecithin.
Modified starch 1412 is Di-starch phosphate and acts as a stabiliser to maintain a consistent texture. Humectants 420 (sorbitol) and 422 (glycerol) are added to the product to stop it drying out. Emulsifier 471 comes from fatty acids and keeps the consistency of the bar and is not considered problematic. E307B is an antioxidant from Vitamin E and stops the food from spoiling- it’s well tolerated.
Common allergens include: wheat, barley, milk, soy

Positives

Medium fibre content. Works out to 2.1g per bar which is 20-30% lower than most other sweet bars. This works out to 15% of a young child’s fibre recommendation, and 11.6% of an older child’s daily fibre recommendations.
The saturated fat content is within healthy guidelines at 1.5g/100g, and total fat content is also low.
The sodium content of these bars is in the medium range at 110mg of sodium per 100g. This is below the general recommendations, but is higher than I’d like for a sweet product.

Negatives

Marketing

“Source of fibre” That basically means it contains some fibre- but it’s one of the lowest fibre bars in this section of the supermarket.
There’s a boy on the front playing cricket, and he looks like an elite sportsperson. I’ll bet you any money he doesn’t eat MILO bars.
”4 health stars’. This is mainly because the MILO bar weighs 21g, compared to most other bars that weight 40g+. It just has less sugar and salt in it because it’s half the size.

Alternatives