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Steggles Tempura Chicken Dino Snacks | Chewsday Review

This week I'm taking another look at Steggles Tempura Chicken Dino Snacks. These nuggets are shaped like dinosaurs, and eternally popular with lots of my clients. Let's see if these continues to impress or if these are now extinct from my recommendations.

Ingredients

Chicken (52%), Water, Wheat Flour, Maize Flour, Wheat Starch, Salt, Dextrose (Tapioca, Maize), Mineral Salts (450, 451, 500), Spice (Turmeric), Wheat Gluten, Vegetable Oil, Soy Meal (Wheat), Soy Protein, Dehydrated Vegetables (Onion, Garlic), Natural Chicken Roast Flavour, Yeast Extract.
Half of this product is made up of chicken, which is quite typical for chicken nuggets.
The other ingredients are a combination of ingredients mostly related to the crumb, like cereal flours, oil, starch and salt.
Allergens: soy, wheat and gluten.
May contain: sesame.

Positives

These have 320mg of sodium (salt) per 100g, which makes them one of the lowest sodium nuggets on the market. This is less than Ingham’s Tempura Chicken Nuggets (455mg per 100g) and Woolworth’s own brand of Crumbed Chicken Nuggets (449mg per 100g).
Steggles Dino Snacks have the lowest saturated fat content of the nuggets I have surveyed, but most chicken nuggets meet recommendations (below 3g of saturated fat per 100g).
These contain no added sugar so only have 0.3g of sugar per 100g.
Thanks to being mostly chicken, these contain a decent amount of protein per serve. Although remember that most Australian kiddies eat enough protein to easily exceed their protein requirements

Negatives

These are on the more expensive end of chicken nuggets. They’re a similar cost to Ingham’s Tempura Chicken Nuggets ($13 per kg), but more than home brands nuggets ($10-11 per kg). The 1kg bag is more cost-effective at $13.50 per kg.
These used to contain more chicken! The old recipe was 60% chicken, so these no longer take out the award for the highest amount of chicken in a chicken nugget. That now goes to Woolworths Crumbed Chicken Breast Nuggets, which are 59% chicken.

Marketing

Alternatives

These nuggets are lower in salt and saturated fat, but more expensive than other brands of chicken nuggets.
If your children enjoy chicken nuggets, these are a reasonable option to choose.
Ideally we’re using store-bought chicken nuggets as a step towards homemade nuggets or plain chicken, but this can be a slow and challenging progression for some families, so if your child enjoys these dino snacks you can breathe a sigh of relief.