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Rafferty’s Garden No Added Sugar Yoghurt | Chewsday Review

Today's Chewsday review features a “baby” yoghurt, because I've had a couple of requests for this particular brand. It’s Rafferty’s Garden No Added Sugar Yoghurt (strawberry flavour today).

Ingredients

Milk, strawberry puree (9%), apple puree, natural flavours, milk solids, cream, live yoghurt culture.
You’ll notice that sugar is not listed as an ingredient, which means that no sugar was added to the yoghurt during production. This is a great thing. However, there will still be some sugars present in the final product, due to those that occur naturally in milk and in strawberries/apple. This is NOT a bad thing!
Common allergens include: milk

Positives

Negatives

Although this yoghurt provides some calcium (129mg/100g) it’s significantly less calcium than most other yoghurts (plain greek usually has ~170-190mg/100g). One pouch provides 18% of a toddler’s calcium requirements and 12% of a young child’s daily requirements. The pack also says it meets 16% of an infant’s (7mo+) calcium requirements, although my calculations suggest it meets 33% of overall daily requirements and if you consider breastmilk/formula contributions then it actually meets 65% of remaining calcium requirements.
Squeezie packs are convenient and less messy than spoons BUT they really don’t help children to develop biting and chewing skills that they need for other foods. They also don’t let children experience the smell or visual component of foods. I’d prefer this yoghurt scooped out of a bigger tub.
Although table sugar hasn’t been added, I’d say there’s about 15% added fruit puree in this yoghurt. I’m not bothered by the sugar in that AT ALL, but my concern is developing a taste for sweetened yoghurt from the start. In fact, the best time to introduce babies to plain or natural yoghurt is when they’re first learning about food. It may take them time to manage the flavour but all the better in the long run! The plain Rafferty’s No Added Sugar Yoghurt would be my preference of them all, and it has a slightly higher calcium content due to the absence of the fruit.

Marketing

”Source of calcium” Just not as much as most other yoghurts.
The ‘all natural’ marketing line is also a lure for parents worried about giving their kids artificial ingredients. Realistically, most yoghurts are made from natural ingredients, so this doesn’t really set this product apart from the rest.
”No thickeners, colours or preservatives” (for the colours and preservatives, this is the case for most kid’s yoghurts). But I guess the absence of thickeners means it’s just yoghurt made from basic ingredients.

Alternatives