Kiddylicious Veggie Straws make for a healthy snack...sort of

I'm always on the look-out for healthy snacks to give my son, and recently he has been absolutely loving the Veggie Straws from Kiddylicious. I just give him a bag, either the normal ones or the cheesy ones, and he's happy for the next 30 minutes (he's a slow eater).

I also like to give him the Veggie Straws because it feels like a much healthier choice compared to something like crisps (although I've previously written about how there are some healthy crisps out there).

However, it wasn't until recently that I decided to sit down and actually take a look at how healthy these Veggie Straws from Kiddylicious are, and I have to say I have mixed thoughts. Let's get into it:

Positives

On the positive side, these snacks are made without any artificial flavours, colours, or preservatives. That's great, because there are plenty of snacks for kids out there which are full of rubbish, so I feel good giving my little one these.

Also, I'm impressed by what Kiddylicious Veggie Straws are made from - yes, they're mostly made from potato, which is basically the same as any other crisp you'll find. But they're 20% rice flour and 19% yellow pea flour, which is interesting to see.

I also like to see that they're made from ingredients like Kale Powder, Spinach Powder, and Beetroot Powder. My suspicion is that these ingredients are in such small amounts that you're not getting a huge amount of benefit from them, and that they're mostly included for colour, but it's still nice to see them.

Negatives

I mentioned that it was nice to see ingredients like rice flour and yellow pea flour, and I assumed this would mean that these Veggie Straws are a bit higher in fibre than other snacks for kids. But actually each bag of Veggie Straws from Kiddylicious contains barely any fibre (it's listed as <0.5g per 12g bag), which is quite disappointing to see. Compare this to something like the Ella's Kitchen Lentil Sticks, and it's extra disappointing - the bags of Ella's Kitchen Lentil Sticks are 2g smaller, but are actually higher in fibre than the Veggie Straws, with 0.7g of fibre per bag.

Sticking with the comparison to the Ella's Lentil Crisps, a few of the other stats don't make for great reading for fans of the Veggie Straws by Kiddylicious. For example, a bag of Kiddylicious Veggie Straws contains 3,2g of fat, which is almost 3 times the amount of fat you'll find in a bag of the Ella's Lentil Sticks (they contain 1.2g of fat per bag). The Lentil Sticks are also a better source of protein compared to the Veggie Straws, with 0.2g of protein more per bag (despite the bags being smaller).

The Veggie Straws are also quite a bit higher in calories compared to the Lentil Sticks - whether or not this is a positive for your wee one will depend on what kind of diet you've been advised to follow for them.

What about the Cheesy Veggie Straws by Kiddylicous?

My kid likes the normal Veggie Straws, but absolutely loves the Cheesy flavour Veggie Straws. The great news is that the cheesy Veggie Straws are lower in fat, lower in calories, lower in salt, and higher in protein compared to the normal Veggie Straws by Kiddylicious, so I'll be continuing to give my wee one the Cheesy ones instead (he'll be delighted!).

So overall, there's no denying that the Veggie Straws from Kiddylicious are healthier than most crisps you'll find on supermarket shelves, but I do find it interesting that the Ella's Lentil Crisps are much lower in fat and have more fibre.

However, one thing I'll be taking away from this is that the Cheesy Veggie Straws are the healthier choice of the 2!

Kiddylicious Veggie Straws make for a healthy snack…sort of

Positives

Negatives

What about the Cheesy Veggie Straws by Kiddylicous?

Finn H

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