• Sweets in child nutrition - the golden mean
• Products "for children" - why should you do without them?
• A popular chocolate cream
• Bar with "milk" filling
• Teddy Bear Shaped Strawberry Cookies
• Flavoured water
• What candy should I give my child?

What should children eat? Young parents who get lost in the information jungle often ask themselves this question. On the one hand, they are being inundated with information about the devastating effects of too much sugar in the diet. It may seem like everyone around is giving kids only healthy snacks, gluten-free, organic, or at least no added sugar. On the other hand, they constantly hear "good advice", which, in short, says that if we do not allow a child to eat sweets, we deprive him of childhood.

Sweets in child nutrition - the golden mean

Child nutrition is a very complex topic. What is certain, however, is that one should not go to extremes. Candy served with the head in reasonable quantities will not immediately cause catastrophic health effects.

Because too much sugar in the diet is not only a big problem for children these days. So it pays to focus on homemade equivalents of popular sweets, fruits, and other healthy snacks.

When we reach for store-bought ones, it would be good to check their composition. Not always those that are labeled as a product designed specifically for children actually are. Quite often it is the other way around. Manufacturers make us a balloon that wraps up a ton of sugar and fat nicely, often adding information like "great for kids".

Products "for children" - why should you do without them?

In order to elucidate the problem, we analyzed the composition of popular children's snacks. See below what's hidden under the colorful packaging with drawings of smiling children's faces or our children's favorite heroes.

A popular chocolate cream

Ingredients: sugar, vegetable oil, hazelnuts 13%, low-fat cocoa powder 7.4%, skimmed milk powder 6.6%, whey powder, soy lecithin, vanillin.

Nuts, cocoa and milk (powder) together make up 27% of the product. That means more than 70% is sugar and oil. If we take a closer look at the nutritional table, it turns out that sugar alone accounts for about 57% of the composition. This means that a smaller jar of cream (250g) contains about 30 teaspoons of sugar! You might as well put a sugar bowl in front of your child. Actually not quite, because the cream also contains hardened vegetable fats that you won't find in a sugar bowl. They have a very negative effect on our health.

Bar with "milk" filling

Ingredients: whole milk chocolate 40% (sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, emulsifier: lecithins (soy), vanilla), sugar, skimmed milk powder, palm oil, butterfat, emulsifier: lecithins (soy), vanilla In this case, the manufacturer has used a very clever procedure. He is obliged to put the ingredients on the list in the order of the most common. This principle is well known, so the manufacturer put chocolate in the first place. It seems - not so bad. Chocolate has a relatively positive connotation due to its magnesium content. The problem is that chocolate is not a raw material, it is also made of "something". And that “something” is primarily sugar. We have up to 53.5% of it throughout the product.

Teddy Bear Shaped Strawberry Cookies

Ingredients: apple and strawberry filling [glucose-fructose syrup, fruit mousse 45% (concentrated apple mousse 27.3%, strawberry mousse 17.7%), humectant (glycerin), acidity regulators (malic acid, citric acid, citrate -sodium), concentrated elderberry juice, aroma, thickener (xanthan gum)], wheat flour 23.6%, eggs, glucose - fructose syrup, sugar, rapeseed oil, stabilizer (glycerin), skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder, raising agents (diphosphates, sodium carbonate), emulsifiers (Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids esterified with lactic acid, esters of fatty acids and polyglycerol), salt, low-fat cocoa, aroma.

The sheer length of the lineup is shocking. If you don't feel like delving into the ingredients of individual products, follow a simple rule: the shorter, the better.

It is worth paying attention to the filling - most often from glucose -fructose syrup, which significantly contributes to the development of obesity, especially in children. It seems, and the manufacturer is probably counting on this, that it is not sugar. And yet it's just as bad or worse than regular sugar.

Flavoured water

Ingredients: water, juices (20%) from: carrots (11%), apples, limes, lemons and raspberries, glucose - fructose syrup, vitamins A, C and E, flavors.

Water is the first ingredient in the composition. With a drink, however, this is obvious. Cola also contains primarily water in its composition. However, the amount of sugar here is shocking. There are 2 heaped teaspoons in 100 ml and around 400 ml in the bottle.

What candy serve child?

We selected extreme examples for analysis. It is better to avoid such sweets. Of course, it is usually not possible to completely eliminate purchased snacks from your child's menu. We also recognize that parents don't always have the time or opportunity to prepare homemade, healthier alternatives for their children.

Fortunately, we also find much better sweets and snacks on store shelves. When buying, it is worth paying attention to the length of the composition on the package, the shorter, the better. Don't let popular slogans like "perfect for kids" fool you. Be careful with the words "no added sugar". Clever manufacturers very often hide sugar behind other substitutes that have a similar effect on our children's health.

Elaborations have been written on children eating sweets. The most important principle, however, is the eternal truth that a child learns through observation. Let's choose healthier alternatives for ourselves, let's not demonize sweets, but let's show that they cannot be the basis of a diet. The child quickly adopts our patterns.