Tasti Smooshed Wholefood Balls Cacao Brownie | Chewsday Review
These snack balls have rolled up for a review, but are they worth going nuts over, or will I be rolling them straight back out the door?
- Dates, cashews, cacao powder (8%), desiccated coconut, date syrup, natural flavour, almonds, peanuts.
- It’s a shame we can’t see the actual amounts of each ingredient.
- Allergens: Peanuts, almonds, cashews.
- May contain: Hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, walnut, soy.
- These don’t contain any added salt, so I’m not surprised the sodium is low and within my recommendations (17mg per 100g).
- Dates are naturally high in dietary fibre, so a serve (3 balls) provides 3.2g of fibre, around 18% of a younger school kid’s daily needs. It depends on the serve size, but most store-bought bliss balls have 2-4g of fibre per serve so this compares fairly well.
- At 52.2g per 100g, the sugar content in these balls exceeds my target, although mostly from naturally occurring sugars from the dates, these do also contain date syrup. Unfortunately I cannot work out from the ingredients list how much date syrup these contain. These do seem to be slightly higher than other brands (Tom & Luke and Health Lab) which could be due to the date syrup, or they could simply contain a higher percentage of dates.
- Thanks to the coconut, saturated fat is a little high (4.1g per 100g). But these are lower than other store-bought bliss balls. Health Lab Choc Brownie balls contain 11.3g saturated fat per 100g.
- These balls are pretty pricey at $36.20 per kilo. Tom and Luke’s ‘Snacka Balls’ are a teeny bit cheaper ($33-34 per kilo) but store-bought bliss ball products are often expensive. I’ve seen some that cost more than $80 per kilo (particularly when you buy an individual serve).
- These contain peanuts and tree-nuts so aren’t going to be suitable for nut-free schools.
- “Plant based.” Yes, no animal products in these (are we really surprised?!).
- “Gluten free.” Sure, but as always being gluten free doesn’t mean it is healthier, it is just helpful to note for people who need to avoid gluten.
- “Source of fibre.” Yep, and that’ll be coming from the dates, cashews and desiccated coconut.
- Overall, these are an expensive option that contain a decent amount of fibre, but they won’t be suitable for lunchboxes if your child attends a nut-free school.
- If you’re looking for a lunchbox friendly store-bought bliss ball you could try Woolies Macro Mighty Bites Cocoa Crunch Balls.
- To save some money I’d recommend trying to make your own. Members can try my Nut-Free Bliss Balls or Banana Bread Balls.
- Want some more support choosing sweet snacks? Toddler Mealtimes and Family Mealtimes have access to more supermarket snack recommendations.
The composition of food products changes regularly. The nutritional values of the products in this Chewsday Review were correct at the time of publishing.
