I recently came across a new product called Funky Monkey, which is a snack tailored towards children. The product promotes being all-natural, real fruit made with the company’s own proprietary freeze-drying process of creating fruit that crunches. Each bag highlights that there is one serving of fruit in every bag. Similarly, Chef Boyardee just started advertising in their canned food line that one serving of vegetables is in every can.
Since when did a serving of fruit come in the form of a crunchy chip or a serving of vegetables come in the form of canned pasta with artificial flavors, colors and preservatives? The healthiest and best options will always be eating the whole fruit or vegetable to get all vitamins, minerals and fiber these amazing produce have to offer.
Yes, there are picky eaters out there and famous comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s wife even came out with a book of recipes that shows parents how to get these whole foods into their meals. We even highlighted 15 tips to sneak vegetables into your diet to highlight that while you may not love every fruit and vegetable out there, your body needs them!
Funky Monkey snacks do not contain any added sugar and are better to eat than regular dried fruit as they retain more nutrients through the freeze-dry process. But there is a nutritional downside. Sugar and calories are more concentrated compared with fresh fruit on a per-weight basis. The U.S. Department of Agriculture lists a serving of fresh grown carrots (roughly four ounces) as containing 5.5 grams of sugar and 50 calories. In comparison with a four-ounce serving of freeze-dried carrots, which contains 60 grams of sugar and 400 calories. That is a substantial increase.
If you are looking for a healthy snack on-the-go for your kids or yourself this might be an option to look into. But might I suggest cutting up some fresh fruit or veggies and throwing that in a Ziploc instead?
