Fruit Sugar Content

Fruit is loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre which is incredibly beneficial to our bodies and should be included in our little one's diets. Fruit can also contain relatively high levels of sugar which has recently caused concern with so many toddlers having teeth removed due to decay.

Use this simple table to help you make wise choices when mixing your little one's smoothies, making fruit purees for weaning or serving fruit snacks and puddings.

Sugar content is listed in grams per 100g of edible fruit and 4g is the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of sugar

We’ve added a few more fruits to our sugar content chart. This is not meant in any way to deter you from eating certain fruits but to help you make wise decisions about how much of some fruits to give and encourage variety.

The sugar in fruit is naturally occurring and it is processed more efficiently by our bodies than refined sugars, syrups and honey but they still increase the acids in our mouths which can cause tooth decay.

If your little ones are fussy about eating whole fruits or they aren't eating a wide variety of fruits, try making smoothies as they may find that they enjoy the taste without the texture of the whole fruit. They may not even notice that you are adding fruits that they normally refuse in amongst others.

Variety in Smoothies & Purees

Smoothies and Purees are  a great way to provide you and your children with large volumes of fantastic vitamins and nutrients that we require from fruit. You can mix up unlimited combinations of ingredients to produce tasty and healthy snacks or drinks......I call them snacks when they're in a pouch for a little one as I make them much thicker.

To ensure that little bodies are not hit with a sudden rush of sugar (albeit natural) we advise to mix high sugar content fruits at the top of this chart with fruits from the lower end of the scale. You can also mix with vegetables and add extra water to control the overall sugar content rather than fruit juices.

Portion control is also very important with Smoothies as it's very easy and quick to drink a lot of something so tasty. We developed our Animal pouches to hold 140ml so they can hold a healthy portion of smoothie as well as baby purees, puddings and yogurts.

Our larger 250ml pouch is perfect for older children to have a healthy portion size of smoothie or soup but we advise to only partially fill the pouch if using for yogurts.

We have lots of smoothie recipes on our recipe pages if you need some ideas. Scroll down the page to find some of my favourites.

Tips for healthy teeth

to help keep your little ones teeth healthy encourage them to drink water after eating fruits with a high sugar content. Avoid brushing teeth immediately after eating high sugar fruits as the enamel can be softened by the acids from the fruits and can be scrubbed away. You can also encourage eating some cheese after eating fruit to neutralise the acids.

Happy healthy snacking!

*the information in this table was taken from www.thepaleodiet.com and compiled using the Nutritionist V Database