Have you seen Deliciously Ella’s new line of products for kids? Deliciously Kids consists of two flavours of ‘oaty’ bars: Raspberry Burst and Vanilla Apple Twist. The new ‘kids’ section on her site includes sleep, mindfulness and movement tips for kids, as well as recipes ‘that kids love, and parents can trust’.
And sure, DE nails all the buzzwords in the website copy:
Whole Food Ingredients ✔️
No UPFs ✔️
Naturally Sweetened ✔️
But does the product live up to these claims? Or is this just marketing bumf that creates a ‘health halo’?
Exactly no one will be surprised to learn that I’m filing this one under: Nutrition Scams for Kids
Ok, buckle in because this is going to get so fucking pedantic, you have no idea.
(Also if looking closely at nutrition labels is going to mess with your head then maybe swerve this post)
Let's break it down.
Whole Food Ingredients?
First up, what even are the ingredients? Here's what's in the raspberry bar: Gluten Free Oats (54%), Coconut Nectar, Coconut Oil, Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Sugar, Date Syrup, Freeze-Dried Raspberry Powder (3%), Lemon Oil.
What do we think the ‘whole food’ ingredient(s) is/are? You might think ‘oh, it’s the oats!’.
Well, maybe.
But, probably not.
Now I can’t be 100% certain, but the chances are they use ‘quick’ or ‘rolled’ oats in their recipe.
Now, nobody is saying these oats are in any way ‘bad’. These are the oats I have in my kitchen, and probably you do too. But if you grew up in Scotland or Ireland, you’ll know there’s a substantive difference between those oats and the kind of oats that makes your spurtle stand on end. That's not a euphemism.
Translation: ‘whole’ oats are steel cut oats. Quick and rolled oats have been processed to a higher extent, which can influence the glycaemic load of the oat. It’s a *bit* like the difference between white and brown bread/pasta/rice; although rolled and quick oats are still a good source of fibre, and overall give the same nutrition, they can increase blood sugar levels more than their less refined counterpart. I’m wagering that they have used a quick or rolled oat here. Yes, the oats are still technically wholegrain, but they have been processed to a greater degree which changes the way they're digested.
I think there’s probably also a case here that the ‘nectar’ and ‘oils’ and so on that are listed are not whole foods either. They’re derivatives of coconut or lemon or whatever else. I think coconut oil specifically is a weird choice given that it's a saturated fat. Compared to unsaturated fats like canola, sunflower, and safflower oils, research indicates that coconut oil can raise levels of low-density lipoprotein aka 'bad' cholesterol. Again, a bit isn't going to do any harm, but it's the health halo thing that frustrates me (Organix bars use sunflower oil and have virtually no saturated fat fwiw).
I don’t want to get too bogged down in the minutiae here; we don’t need to in order to make the point that ‘whole food’ is not a permitted health or nutrition claim under EFSA. You can just say it and nobody will do anything about it except some pedantic asshole on the internet (hi, it me). Again, it's not that this food is 'bad' or that you shouldn't give your kids quick oats; it's that the marketing is disingenuous and misleading.
No UPFs?
We already know that DE is on the anti-UPF train, so it’s no surprise that they’re leaning into it in their marketing. But, as we know, there’s no standardised definition of a UPF. This is essentially a riff on ‘Whole Foods’ above and feels redundant when you look at it closely. But, whatever shifts bars I guess.
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