Review: Uncle Toby’s Fruity Bites

Let's review- Wildberry Flavour Fruity Bites!

What is in it?

Whole Grain Cereals (52%) [Wheat (40%), Oats (12%)], Fruit Paste [Concentrated Apple Puree, Berry Puree (2.5%) (Strawberry, Raspberry, Blueberry), Concentrated Blackcurrant Juice, Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Humectant (Glycerol), Acidity Regulator (Malic Acid), Gelling Agent (Sodium Alginate), Firming Agent (Calcium Lactate), Flavour], Wheat Flour, Sugar, Mineral Salt (Calcium Carbonate), Salt.

Vitamins and Minerals
Minerals (Iron), Vitamins (C, Niacin, B1, Riboflavin)

Allergens

Contains: wheat and gluten containing ingredients.

May contain:  milk, Soy, tree nuts & Lupin.

​Cost: $1.30 per 100g

Compared to:

• Regular Weet-bix at $0.50- $0.70 per 100g.
• Little Kid's Weet-Bix at $1.13 per 100g
• Rice Bubbles $1.59-$2.16 per 100g
• Coles Rice Puffs $0.78 per 100g
• Coles Corn Flakes $0.48 per 100g
• Most cereals range from $0.50-$3.00 per 100g.

What we like:

• Low sodium- only 45mg per 100g. This is super low for breakfast cereals- many have moderate sodium. 
• It has added iron (3mg per serve) which is great for our kiddos that don't like meat and struggle to get iron rich foods into their diet over the day
• Low in saturated fat (0.4g per 100g) which we would expect for a breakfast cereal. 

What we like less:

• Lower in fibre than we would like- it only has 2.3g per serve and we would like to see it above 3g especially for a cereal that promotes itself as being "50% whole grains" and "source of fibre" on the front on the box! 
• It is high in sugar with 22.3g per 100g. We ideally want less than 15g to keep it in the low to moderate range (less than 5g per 100g is low and less than 15g is moderate). A lot of this is likely coming from added sugar and not just the fruit.

Let's compare the sugar in these to other cereals:

• Cheerios Low Sugar  (4.1g per 100g)
• Rice bubbles (8.4g per 100g)
• Corn Flakes (8.9g per 100g)
• Cheerios Original (14.6g per 100g)
• Milo Cereals (23.9g per 100g)
• Weetbix Bites (21.8g per 100g)
• Nutrigrain (24g per 100g)
• Cocopops (32.2g per 100g)

Other things to consider:

• This won't matter for most families but, for our dairy and soy free kids looking for a calcium boost there is no added calcium in these.
• Protein- 7.4g per 100g of protein. This may be useful for some families, but most children in Australia easily meet if not exceed their protein requirements so parents don't need to go looking for ways to add more in!

The Take Home: 

Whether this is a good breakfast option for your family really does depend on your individual needs! If you have a picky eater that loves these or struggles to get iron rich foods in over the day these might be a good option for you.

However, because of the high amount of added sugar, these wouldn't be our first choice for cereal if there are other options your kids will eat.

These might be better: added into other lower sugar cereals, crushed and served in yoghurt or served dry in a lunch box as part of a school snack.

If you want to learn how to review cereals yourself, check out our new resource on 'Choosing Cereals for Toddlers' (you can check it out here)!