Count on Us... Fat Free Natural Probiotic Yogurt

Marks and Spencer have added a few new varieties to their Count on Us range of yogurts this year. Along with the new individual pots (see post) is a 500g pot of fat free natural probiotic yogurt.

It's a great choice if you're trying to slim. A quarter of a pot has just 65 calories (50 per 100g).

Tesco Goodness Apple Cereal Bars

Having run out of snacks to put in the children's lunch boxes, I decided to check out the children’s snack area in Tesco to see what they had. Always on the lookout for ‘healthier’ type treats, this box of 6 Goodness cereals bars grabbed my attention.


It was the pretty packaging that got me with all those happy, smiley, bright green apples dancing around in a cheerful orchard scene. Even the box looks like it's made from 'green' recyclable cardboard. Also, with a name like ‘Goodness’, then surely they'd be healthy!

Having a quick glance at the calorie information, in this case – 80 calories per bar, I concluded they were OK to buy. So what are they?

Tesco Lighter than Light Mayonnaise

Having run out of my usual Hellman’s Lighter than Light mayonnaise, I thought I’d try out Tesco’s own lowest calorie mayonnaise which, incidentally, is also called ‘Lighter than Light!

It contains 80% less fat than Tesco’s standard mayonnaise and has 14 calories per 15g tablespoon.

If you use a lot of mayonnaise, you can make a huge calorie saving by switching to the lighter than light variety.

Tesco do have a Light Mayonnaise which also saves many calories, but Lighter than Light is the lowest.

Chicken Tikka Masala Tesco Light Choices

Chicken Tikka Masala is an easy enough meal to make from scratch. But sometimes it’s nice to have one ready in the freezer if you don’t have the time or ingredients to get cooking.

Recently tried by my family was this ready meal by Tesco’s Light Choices called Chicken Tikka Masala with Yellow Rice.

This is a reduced fat ready meal which has been given a ‘2 chilli’ rating, meaning ‘medium’ on the chilli heat scale. Each 400g pack has 415 calories and 11 ProPoints.

Mission Deli Mini Tortilla Wraps - NEW

If you're looking for tortilla wraps, there's no shortage of brands to choose from. The calorie content can vary quite considerably with anything from 100 to over 200 each.

Mission Deli have a good selection of wraps which typically have around 200 calories each. However, they've recently introduced new Wheat and White Mini Wraps with only 97 calories each.

Weight Watchers Range of Pizzas (NEW)

Virtually everyone loves pizza.  It's one of those meals that's handy to keep in the freezer for days you don't feel like cooking or for when when unexpected friends drop round.

However, pizzas can be exceedingly unhealthy with a high fat and calorie content. If you're on a diet or watching your weight, it's best to steer well clear of deep crust pizzas, stuffed crust pizzas, those with loads of cheese and/or meat toppings, especially those such as pepperoni which is loaded with fat.

If you want to enjoy a pizza without the excess fat and calories,Weight Watchers have a new selection of wholemeal based pizzas made with a thin crust.

Jordans Range of Frusli Cereal Bars

I’ve only recently started buying Frusli bars. Generally I prefer to keep cereal bar snacks to 100 calories or less. However, the Frusli range aren’t that much higher, with an average of 114 calories each.

Frusli bars are packed with a range of dried fruits and/or nuts together with wholegrain oat flakes, wholegrain oat flour and rice flour. They make a light, sweet and chewy snack and are available in a range of tasty combinations.

Dairy Free Soya Alternatives to Natural Yoghurt

If you can’t eat dairy but like yogurt, you’re probably aware there’s a somewhat limited choice of dairy alternatives on the supermarket shelves. However, there is a steady trickle of new varieties making their way into the chiller cabinets of the larger supermarkets. Also, health food shops nearly always stock soy yogurts.

Although there are a few flavoured soya yogurts around, these generally have more calories than the natural varieties. As such, if you’re after a lower calorie alternative yogurt, look for the plain or natural soya yogurt. Again, there aren't many, but those I’ve found have an average of 50 calories per 100ml.

Cadbury Highlights Chocolate Drinks NEW Flavours

Cadburys Highlights have recently introduced two new flavours to their range of low calorie hot chocolate drinks. (See post). These are: Highlights Hazelnut flavour and Highlights Caramel flavour. They're available in single, stick pack 11g sachets.


Like the others in the range, these new flavours have 40 calories per serving.

Graze Box Review - Salsa Mexicanos & Berry Compote

What with holidays and changing my Graze deliveries to twice a month, it’s been a while since my last review. So this week I’ve got three exciting new snacks to talk about. These were delivered in three separate weeks during July, August and September.

Graze have been coming up with lots more new and interesting snacks, which are all, of course, bursting with healthy nutrients. Each Graze box is accompanied by a leaflet which provides a nutritional breakdown of each snack and a list of ingredients. And the latest leaflet gives a sneak preview of a whole new type of snack coming soon.

Here’s a look at the new snacks received during my last three deliveries.

Kellogg's Special K Biscuit Moments - NEW

Kellogg’s Special K have added two more snacks to their calorie counted range of treats. The newest additions are called Biscuit Moments and they’re available in two varieties: Strawberry and Blueberry.






New Special K Biscuit Moments are delicious baked, crispy biscuits with a soft fruit filling and topped with a vanilla drizzle. Each pack of two biscuits is worth just 98 or 99 calories making them an ideal snack for anyone who’s watching their weight or trying to keep calories down.

Tesco Light Choices Salad Cream - 21 Calories

During the warmer summer months, eating a refreshing and healthy salad is far more appealing than during the depths of an icy winter. For those that like to spice up their salad and add a bit more flavour, salad cream can do the job very well.

But adding salad cream can also add lots of unwanted calories, making your salad not quite as healthy as it was. Choosing a reduced fat variety can add flavour with very few calories. Tesco Light Choices Salad Cream contains 50% less fat than their standard version, with just 21 calories per tablespoon and 1 ProPoint as calculated by Tesco.

Alpro Soya Light Vanilla and Chocolate Drinks - NEW

Although I'm not a vegetarian, I've switched from drinking dairy milk to soya. And, having tried as many brands as I can find, my absolute favourite is Alpro's Soya Light (ambient) variety. This is slightly sweet but still has only 31 calories per 100ml. Alpro also have an ambient Vanilla flavour, which I’ve often wanted to try but the calories were too high.

So this week I was excited to see Alpro have produced a new lower calorie, Light Vanilla flavour soya milk as well as a new Light Chocolate flavour.

Warburtons Brown and Seeded Square Wraps

Wraps are a popular choice to use as an alternative to good old bread. Most wraps are round in shape and often cause all sorts of problems when it comes to wrapping them up while retaining the filling.

Warburtons came up with a great idea by introducing White Square Wraps which I reviewed back in March this year (2012) (See post).

Since then, Warburtons have brought out Brown Square Wraps and Seeded Square Wraps.

Diet A&W Root Beer - Candy USA

You know times are hard when you go into town and find yet another shop has closed down. It’s really sad, especially when they’re boarded up. But sometimes old stores get replaced by new ones and this week I came across a new store that caught my attention.

It’s called Candy USA and is full of US imports, mainly candy funnily enough, plus other popular US foods such as Twinkies and Hershey’s bars and even coconut M&Ms. My daughter dragged me in there and I must admit it I felt like a kid in a candy store!

Ever conscious of my waistline (and teeth), there was little in here I’d consider buying since it was mainly sweet, oh so calorific things. But browsing over at the drink section there were a few diet drinks, one of which was A&W Root Beer.

Tesco Meat Free Hot Dog Sausages

Everyone seems to love hot dogs and my family are no different. However, I’ve always been a bit dubious about what sort of stuff goes into making regular hot dog sausages.

I know they taste great and everything, but since watching various TV programmes showing exactly what mechanically recovered meat looks like and how it’s made, let’s just say I don’t feel quite  the same way about them as I once did. 

Cadbury Dairy Milk Bubbly Mini Bars - NEW

Hooray, it seems I’m not alone in my wish for a smaller Cadbury Dairy Milk Bubbly Bar. Just spotted in my local Costcutter was the new Bubbly Mini Bar.

I wrote about the larger 100g and 90g bars in an earlier post (see here) and my hopes that it would be available in a smaller version one day. And now it is.

Marks & Spencer Wheatgerm Loaf

One of the reasons I make a trip to Marks & Spencer is to pick up a loaf of their Wholemeal High Bran  bread. 

Unfortunately, on my most recent visit, the shelves where High Bran should have been, were empty. Rather than leave with no bread, I decided to grab a Wheatgerm loaf instead. 

M&S Wheatbran bread is a 400g loaf made with Hovis flour and enriched with wheatgerm. It's thinly sliced giving each slice a calorie count of just 50 calories.

Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Breakfast Biscuits - NEW

Nutri-Grain Cereal & Milk

If eating biscuits for breakfast is your thing, you're in luck. The huge popularity of Belvita Breakfast biscuits seems to have caught on with more brands creating their own versions.

The latest brand to hit the shelves is from Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain who already have a well established line in snack bars.

Nutri-Grain Breakfast Biscuits currently have three varieties to choose from: Cereal & Milk, Oats & Honey and Fruit & Fibre.

NEW - June 2013: Nutri-grain Chocolate.

No Added Sugar Juice Drinks from Sainsbury's

Nothing quite beats a glass of icy cold, fresh fruit juice for quenching your thirst. Fruit juice is generally a healthy drink, whereby a typical 150ml glass counts as one of your five a day. However, fruit juices often contain a lot of sugar, whether natural or added. This, of course means more calories.

If you’re looking for a lower calorie alternative to fruit juice, you could opt for juice drinks instead. These contain a lower proportion of juice, usually a fruit concentrate and more water. Juice drinks also contain sugar but they can be made with no added sugar which further reduces the calorie content.

Sainsbury's have a great range of no added sugar juice drinks which are all low calorie. Switching from a regular juice drink to a no added sugar variety can save you hundreds of calories, especially if you drink a lot of it. The newest flavours in the range are No Added Sugar Mango, No Added Sugar Orange and No Added Sugar Mixed Berry.

Here’s a look at the variety of No Added Sugar Juice drinks from the Sainsbury’s brand. They are all sweetened with sucralose (like Splenda) which provides negligible calories.

No Added Sugar Orange Juice Drink:
9 calories per 100ml;
Orange juice from concentrate (20%).


No Added Sugar Mango Juice Drink:
13 calories per 100ml;
20% mango puree.


No Added Sugar Mixed Berry Juice Drink:
14 calories per 100ml;
Fruit Juices from Concentrate (30%) (Apple (27%), Blackberry (1%), Raspberry (1%), Strawberry (1%))


No Added Sugar Apple Juice Drink:
9 calories per 100ml;
20% juice concentrate


No Added Sugar Cranberry & Raspberry:

A glass of Cranberry & Raspberry

6 calories per 100ml;
Cranberry 5%, raspberry 5%

No Added Sugar Cranberry:
2 calories per 100ml;
10% cranberry concentrate


No Added Sugar Pomegranate:
19 calories per 100ml;
Pomegranate (35%), Aronia Juice (5%)

As a calorie comparison example, Sainsbury’s Mango Juice drink has 60 calories per 100ml whereas the No Added Sugar Mango Juice drink has just 13 calories.

If you’re watching your weight and enjoy juice drinks, then switching to the no added sugar varieties can really help with weight loss.

These are all ambient juice drinks so you can find them in the long life juice section of Sainsbury’s stores.

Nutrition Information per 100ml Cranberry & Raspberry Juice Drink: 3 calories, 0.1g protein, 0.4g carbohydrate, 0.4g sugars, trace fat, trace saturates, trace salt. Vitamin C 25.0mg.

Kit Kat Cookies & Cream (107 calories)

Nestle Kit Kat have brought out a gorgeous new Cookies & Cream variety to add to their wide range of 2 finger wafer bars.

The lower half of the bars have a milk chocolate covering while the top half is coated with a cookie flavour white chocolate. Irresistible! Not only do they taste fantastic, with just 107 calories per bar, they can easily be accommodated in most weight loss diet plans.



Nestle Kit Kat Cookies & Cream are sold in multi packs of eight, individually wrapped two finger bars. They’re an idea size for snacking on. Just enough to satisfy a chocolate craving but not so much that you’re eating too many calories.

Some nutrition facts about Kit Kat:

• Free from hydrogenated fat
• Free from nuts and eggs
• Free from preservatives
• Free from artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners
• Suitable for vegetarians.

Nestle Kit Kat Cookies & Cream 2 Finger Wafer Bars are available in supermarkets now.

Nutrition Information per bar - 20.8g (2 fingers): 107 calories 1.3g protein, 10.8g sugar, 5.1g fat, 3.2g saturates, 0.3g fibre, 0.05g salt.

Weight Watchers Blueberry & Vanilla Oaty Biscuits

Back in March I reviewed Weight Watchers delicious Cranberry & Sunflower Seed Oaty Biscuits. Since then Weight Watchers have revamped their packaging styles and along with it, brought out lots of new products.

I recently spotted these and thought they must be the Cranberry biscuits in a new pack. However, they were a different variety altogether called Weight Watchers Blueberry & Vanilla Oaty Biscuits.

Humdinger Strawberry Fruit & Yoghurt Bars Review

I found these fruit and yoghurt bars in the dried fruit and children's snacks area of Sainsbury's supermarket. Generally, if I see the words yogurt or fruit and phrases such as ‘packed with 80% fruit goodness’, I’ll generally give it a closer inspection.

The name of these snacks is '5 Strawberry Fruit & Yoghurt Bars' and they're made by The Fruit Factory (Humdinger). Boxes contain 5 x 20g bars with each bar worth 62 calories and they contribute to your 5-a-day.

Here’s the description:

‘Fruit Factory fruit & yoghurt bars are made with a delightful blend of dried fruits, fruit puree and yoghurt pieces. A delicious mouth-watering snack packed with 80% fruit goodness. Ideal for lunchboxes, picnics, playtimes & days out.’

Initially, I thought these bars looked similar to the fruit bars by Nakd. Eighty percent fruit sounds pretty good for a snack bar. And a strawberry fruit flavoured bar with yogurt flavoured chips sounds delicious. Healthy even.

On the back of the box we're told that to make these 5 bars they used 2 medium pears, 5 apricots, 37 grapes and, wait for it... 1 small strawberry!

At first glance I thought this was fantastic. All that fruit and what a great way to get such a selection into my fruit-hating youngest child. However, something didn’t seem right. One strawberry in a snack that is called a Strawberry Fruit & Yoghurt bar.’

Looking at the ingredients, the order of fruit is as follows: dried pear, dried apricot, yoghurt chips, followed by sugar, emulsifiers, sultanas, then eventually you find strawberry puree (4%). They are 80% fruit, but I’m not sure they should actually be called ‘Strawberry bars’ at all.

Strawberry Fruit & Yoghurt Bar

I also thought this statement ‘The fruit content of each bar is sufficient to contribute to your 5-a-day’ to be somewhat vague. How many of your 5-a-day exactly?

Anyway, onto the bars themselves. As the photo shows, they’re a pinkish colour with white yogurt chips. I found these the tastiest bit. The actual bar is soft and squishy but the taste is a bit strange. I couldn't actually determine what it was, but strawberry wasn’t the first flavour that sprang to mind.

My children liked them and, contrary to my opinion, did think they tasted like strawberry. What do I know!

Since my kids liked them, and as they have only 62 calories each and they contain a substantial amount of fruit, I'll most likely buy these fruit bars again as a lunch box snack.

Nutritional Information per 20g bar: 62 calories, 0.5g protein, 12.0g carbohydrate, 11.6g sugars, 1.4g fat, 1.2g saturates, 1.0g fibre, > 0.1g sodium.

Sugar Free Mixed Berry Muffins

I love muffins but I'll rarely buy one from any cake or coffee shop. Most are way too big for a snack, plus they're loaded with sugar, fat, and of course, calories. In some cases well over 300 calories per muffin. From past experiences, I know that eating that many calories as a snack will only lead to weight gain.

These days, the only time I eat muffins is when I bake them myself (usually when my kids have pestered me enough)! This way I know exactly what's gone into them and have some control over how many calories they have.

The recipe here is one taken from an Antony Worrall Thompson cookbook called The Sweet Life: 101 Indulgent Recipes with Less Sugar. I’ve slightly adapted it by using reduced fat butter to further lower the calories and fat.

The total made up mixture has roughly 920 calories.

Now, it’s up to you to decide how many muffins you make. The more muffins, the fewer calories each one will have. The initial recipe states it makes 8 muffins, which, if using regular muffin trays or cases, will give each muffin 115 calories.

However, I use cupcake cases which are smaller and I find the mixture stretches to make 15 mini muffins with each muffin worth 61 calories.

Here’s what you need.

Ingredients:

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Makes 8 muffins (115 calories each) or 15 mini muffins (61 calories each)

• 200g self raising flour (630 calories)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 8 tablespoons Splenda granulated sweetener (40 calories)
• 100g mixed berries (40 calories)
• 1 egg (80 calories)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50g reduced fat butter (257 calories)
• 100ml semi-skimmed milk (49 calories)
• 1 ripe banana, mashed (90 calories)

Method: 

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Step 1: Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6. Line a baking tray with cupcake cases or small muffin trays.

Step 2: Tip the flour, baking powder and sweetener into a mixing bowl then add the fruit. If you’re using frozen fruit, allow it to thaw slightly first.

Step 3: Mix the egg, milk, vanilla extract, melted butter and milk. Stir into the dry ingredients along with the mashed banana until just combined with no dry flour left. This is best done using a spoon rather than a mixer as over mixing should be avoided. The mixture will be quite lumpy.

Step 4: Spoon into your paper cases or muffin trays and bake for 20-25 minutes until they’ve risen and are golden on top. (20 minutes for more muffins, or 25 minutes for 8 muffins). Leave to cool on a wire rack.

In pictures through the steps:

The inside of a mixed berry muffin

Tips and Suggestions: 

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• This mixture provides around 920 calories but these figures will naturally vary up or down due to the variations in egg size, banana size and type/brand of butter or spread used.
• I use McDougalls flour which has fewer calories. 
• Most reduced fat butters have a similar number of calories and I’ve used Country Life in my recipe. See this guide for the calories in popular reduced fat butters.
• Feel free to change the fruit to other soft fruits but stick to 100g.
• You can use plain flour instead of self raising, but add another teaspoon of baking powder.
• Use frozen berries if you prefer, but let them thaw slightly before adding to the mix.
• Can’t eat them all at once? These muffins can be frozen. Let them cool completely, then pop them into a freezer bag or an airtight, freezable container.

 I hope you enjoy eating these as much as we do.

Note: Although the recipe has no added sugar, natural sugars are present from the milk and banana and berries.

And this is the recipe book from Antony Worrall Thompson called The Sweet Life: 101 Indulgent Recipes with Less Sugar.

Related links:

Splenda

Reduced fat butter


© Diets and Calories 2012