A decent punch of calories
The shelf with snacks in the supermarket is becoming more and more extensive. You have cookies with raisins, nuts, fruit, a yoghurt layer, with whole wheat flour, with spelled, with quinoa…. It can’t be done! Parents give their children such ‘responsible’ snacks to school, or put such a package in their bag themselves. These cakes have one thing in common: they have a healthy image. But is that justified?
Actually, that’s quite disappointing. Because the basis of most cakes is still flour and sugar. And because the cookies are often packaged in twos or threes, they deliver a decent punch of calories. A pack of snacks in between quickly provides 150 kilocalories. For children, this is easily 10 percent of the total energy requirement per day. For an adult woman with an average energy requirement of 2000 kilocalories, it is not nothing.
With quinoa, spelled or blueberry
Producers naturally try to make their cakes look as healthy as possible. They state on the packaging that their cookies contain trendy ingredients, such as spelled, almond, blueberry or quinoa. It is important to look critically at the labels. It may well be that there is only a trace of quinoa in the cookies.
The Consumers’ Association has also warned about this. For example, the Consumers’ Association found blueberry cakes containing 1/10 blueberry per cake! Or it turned out that a very healthy-looking bar contained as much as 30 percent sugar.
Without sugar?
What about cookies that say “no added sugar” or “natural sugars”? These cakes often contain dried fruit, such as dates, raisins or apple. Seems healthy, but on balance such a bar still provides a lot of sugar, which your body eventually just has to process.
The World Health Organization recommends getting no more than 10 percent of daily calorie intake from added sugars. Even better is 5 percent. In grams, that is 25 grams of sugar per day for an adult. With the snacks you can easily go over that daily quota.
Better: 1 cookie
So is there anything good about these cookies? You can also look at it positively. Intermediate biscuits often contain slightly less sugar and more fiber than egg biscuits, biscuits or stroopwafels. But don’t think that eating these cookies will make you healthier. Rather take fruit. In any case, it is better not to give a child a whole package, but one cookie to school. Even better: an apple, banana, tangerine, cup of grapes or ‘candy vegetables’.
Sugar and calories
Curious about what’s in your favorite cookie? View the overview below (Source: Eetmeter, Nutrition Center). If yours is not listed, look at the packaging.
| Biscuit | Kilocalories per pack | Carbohydrates (most sugars) |
|---|---|---|
| Evergreen Crunchy | 150 | 23 grams |
| Evergreen forest fruits | 163 | 29 grams |
| Hero B’tween Cereal Bar | 111 | 19 grams |
| Liga Milkbreak | 178 | 25 grams |
| muesli bar | 108 | 13 grams |
| Fast Jelle | 170 | 38 grams |
| Sultana Yofruit | 144 | 26 grams |
| Sultana Crunchers | 144 | 25 grams |
