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Yumi’s Veggie Minis | Chewsday Review

I’m always a little suspicious of foods that contain veggie in their name. If you’ve been here a while, you know how many veggie chips I’ve reviewed that are just expensive chips. This week I’m reviewing Yumi’s Veggie Minis, so let’s see if they actually live up to their name.

Ingredients

Vegetables (58%) (Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Green Pea, Spinach, Onion, Dried Potato, Garlic), Chickpea, Canola Oil, Yeast Extract, Salt, Pepper, Oregano (0.1%).
Sometimes manufacturers group ingredients together to make it look like the product contains more of something. So if this product listed 58% vegetables, you might find that sweet potato makes up most of that amount and pumpkin, peas only contribute a very small amount. Based on this list, I suspect these minis are mostly sweet potato or possibly chickpeas! In this example, that’s not a problem, but watch out if the ingredient after the grouped ingredients is water, salt or sugar, as that’s what you’re likely paying for.
Allergens: none.
May contain: lupin, sesame and tree nuts.

Positives

I’m impressed. These really are just a bunch of roasted veg and chickpeas mashed together then fried.
Saturated fat is low at 0.7g per 100g, which isn’t a big surprise as these are vegan and the oil is canola oil, which is naturally low in saturated fat.
I’m impressed that these don’t contain unnecessary added sugar.
Each serve contains 3.3g of fibre, which is nearly 25% of a toddler’s and nearly 20% of a school-aged child’s recommended daily fibre intake.
If your child tends to like nuggets or fritter-style foods, these might be a stepping stone to pieces of sweet potato or pumpkin. They do contain ‘bits’ though, which might offend some food detectives.

Negatives

Technically the salt content is within recommendations at 329mg per 100g, but they are too salty for babies. A 50g serve is about 80% of a baby’s maximum salt allowance.
Cost is probably the biggest factor here. Essentially you are paying $30 per kg for the convenience. Sweet potato and pumpkin are on the cheaper end of the scale for veg, so it seems wild to pay $3 for a 100g pack, when you can get sweet potato or pumpkin for not much more per kg.
These do come in plastic packaging. If you’re trying to reduce your soft plastic use, making your own from scratch could result in less plastic waste. But sometimes convenience wins.

Marketing

“One delicious serve of veggies per pack”. I personally love the taste of most things from this brand, but this means that if your child ate half a pack, they’re getting half a serve of veg.
“Always gluten free”. Great for coeliac kids or those with wheat allergies, but fairly meaningless for the rest of us.
“No artificial colours or flavours”. True, but also fairly standard nowadays.

Alternatives