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Tasti Smooshed Wholefood Balls (Berry, Cashew and Cacao) | Chewsday Review

Tasti boasts to have all your snacking needs covered, whether you like something sweet or you’re crazy about nuts, they will have something to satisfy you and your family. Bliss balls are all the rage right now and being able to buy them pre-packaged is super convenient! But, just how good are their “naturally delicious” products. Let’s see in today’s Chewsday review…

Ingredients

Positives

Before I start, the recommended ‘serving’ of this food is the WHOLE PACKET or 6 balls. That seems outrageous to me.
They contain a decent amount of protein per serve (the whole packet), with 4.8g per 69g serving. In comparison to the Woolworths vanilla yogurt pouch (70g serving) which only has 2.9g of protein per serve, these balls definitely come with a protein punch! Just remember that Australian kids usually get about 4x their protein needs in a day.
They have very little sodium in them with only 9mg per 100g. This is a great option as we want to keep sodium below 120mg per 100g.
These balls will also give your little ones a good amount of dietary fibre with 5.9g per serve (packet). This will help to keep little tummies happy and regular! It’s recommended that children aged between 4-8 years old get around 18g/day.
Bear in mind the serve size is the entire packet (6 balls) so in order to get these benefits they would need to eat the whole packet.
$3 per serving. This works out to be much cheaper than the Keep it Cleaner protein balls which are $7.50 per 100g, whereas these wholefood balls are $4.35 per 100g!

Negatives

Given that one serving is 6 balls you’re getting 1120KJ (nearly 270 calories) in a serve, which will definitely impact on fullness at the next meal (so don’t offer just before dinner!)
These balls are almost 50% sugar so you get 33.4g/serve (packet), which is a lot!
The sugar comes from the dates. Dried fruit is only recommended to be consumed occasionally as it can stick to our teeth causing dental problems. We can easily overdo it on dried fruit, so this is something to be mindful of. A serve of dried fruit is 30g, whereas a serve of these balls provides almost 50% more dried fruit, which is well over the recommended amount!
Also, I’m not so sure about the term ‘wholefood’ as they contain concentrates and flavours which is a bit misleading.

Marketing

No added sugar – True. But they do contain a lot of sugar per serve. The sweetness comes from the addition of the dates. Just because it’s natural sugar, it’s still something to keep mind as it can be overdone. It’s interesting that dates aren’t even mentioned in the name of the product as they are the number one ingredient. This is a good reminder to always look at the ingredients list!
Vegan – Technically true, however there could be traces of milk solids and eggs present in these balls.

Alternatives

These balls are essentially just made up of 66% dried fruit and 19% nuts (with a few other things added.) You could easily save yourself some money and just give your kids the real stuff.
Personally, I would prefer to make my own wholefood balls. They are really quick and easy to make, and you have the freedom to put whatever ingredients you like in them.
The takeaway – these are probably best kept as a ‘sometimes’ food or a special treat for your kids, definitely not something to be had every day.