Fun though it can be to treat your children with chocolate at Easter, you could still be concerned about that confectionary’s nutritional content. Recent research by Simply Education, an agency which matches teaching staff to schools around the UK, appears to vindicate such concern.
Simply Education looked at six Easter chocolate treats – the Malteser Bunny, Galaxy Golden Eggs, Cadbury Creme Egg, Milky Bar Eggs, Lindt Bunny and Cadbury Mini Eggs – popular with children and recorded the sugar content of each product. The findings could shock you…
How healthy are those chocolate eggs and bunnies?
The NHS has published guidelines for the maximum intake of sugar that should be permitted for children in different age brackets. The highest amount for children aged 4 to 6 is 19g, rising right up to 30g for children aged 11 or older.
However, a single Creme Egg contains 26.5g of sugar. That gives each egg an eye-watering sugar percentage of 66.5%. Of the treats assessed by Simply Education, Mini Eggs are the worst offenders in respect of sugar percentage, which is 68.5% in this instance.
The two bunnies don’t fare quite so bad, with the Malteser and Lindt offerings having respective sugar concentrations of 53% and 55%. Still, the Lindt Bunny weighs nearly twice as much, and this is largely reflected in the sugar amount of 27.5g, which drops to 15g in the case of the Malteser Bunny.
A choc to the system?
Of course, none of this is to say that you shouldn’t let your children still enjoy chocolate as the last of the Easter celebrations starts to fade. However, you might want to be careful exactly which treats you serve them. You could even be inspired to teach other young people how to eat healthily – and Simply Education can assist you along the way.
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Photo Credit: Debby Hudson Monika Grabkowska
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