Less fat in burgers than some child snacks

PARENTS beware: That healthy-sounding snack that is supposedly tailored for your baby’s nutritional needs could be just as unhealthy as junk food, research shows.

Sustain, a charity that campaigns for healthier children’s food, has found that cheese burgers and chocolate were, in some cases, more nutritious than children’s snacks.

More than 100 children’s foods were examined.

The ever-popular Farley’s Rusks were found to have more sugar than McVitie’s dark chocolate digestive biscuits. Heinz Toddler’s Own’s mini cheese biscuits, which contain 100g of saturated fat, have higher fat content than a McDonald’s cheese burger.

Cow & Gate Baby Balance biscuits contained trans fats, a manufactured and controversial fat linked to coronary heart disease and which has been the subject of vociferous public lobbying in the US. Trans fats were not included on the list of ingredients.

Joint co-ordinator of Sustain’s Children’s Food Campaign, Christine Haugh, said the survey results were “staggering”.

“In particular, failing to correctly to label products that contain dangerous trans fats is outrageous.”