Look away Jamie! The new Turkey Twizzlers really ARE healthier...

Family favourites from Coco Pops to Lucozade have been reformulated to be better for us. But how do the new versions measure up?

HAS there ever been a more maligned food than the Turkey Twizzler? More than a decade ago, these corkscrewshaped turkey sausage creations were singled out by TV chef Jamie Oliver in his campaign to promote healthier dinners — and shamed for containing just 34 per cent meat.

The rest was a concoction of flavourings, sugar, rusk — a wheat-based bulking product — water and fat, which made up more than a fifth of each Twizzler.

Oliver filmed a series in which he terrified children by showing the ‘gunk’ that similar meat products, including chicken nuggets, were made from (despite this the children all said they would still eat it).

But the new Twizzler certainly seems less sinister, containing fewer calories and half the fat of the original. They are also, impressively, 70 per cent turkey meat — almost on a par with a posh supermarket sausage. Could they actually be (whisper it) an acceptable dish to serve hungry kids? The answer might well be yes.

In truth, the new Twizzlers are just the latest in an ever-growing list of family favourites that have been reformulated over the past few years to be better for us. Following pressure from health chiefs food industry bosses are changing their recipes to healthier versions of their former selves. Some of our best-known breakfast cereals, biscuits, chocolate bars and even yogurts — often vilified for being unnecessarily sugary — have undergone a nutrition transformation, without many of us even noticing.

But have they gone far enough?

Many diet experts are unconvinced, adahoops mant that so-called ultra-processed foods (junk food to the rest of us) must be avoided at all costs. And they may have a point. Just last week, a major study from the British National Institute of Health found that eating these foods for every meal, for just two weeks, caused participants to consume extra calories — and gain weight. A wealth of evidence confirms this association, with a study last year estimating that those who eat the most junk-heavy diets increase their risk of early death by up to 60 per cent. So are a few recipe tweaks really enough to make these calorific staples good for us? Or do they remain junk, only slightly less so?

We examined some new recipes and tried to compare them, where possible, to the old formulas to find out. LUCOZADE NUTRITION per 250ml glass CALORIES ............... 88 TOTAL FAT .............. Less

than 1g SUGAR ...................... 11.3g SALT ........................... 0.14g IS IT REALLY HEALTHIER?

ENERGY drink firm Lucozade reformulated its recipe and the CEO of the company, which also makes Ribena, claims the decision to reduce the sweet stuff was a moral one.

Before this, one glass contained roughly five teaspoons of free sugars – the type we should limit to seven teaspoons daily. Now, it’s just under three teaspoons per 250ml serving – or so it seems. The label features something called glucose-based carbohydrate – 11g per glass. This is a syrup-like form of carbohydrate that is very quickly digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. While it doesn’t legally have to be labelled as sugar, it can still coat teeth, increasing the risk of tooth decay. So really, a glass still effectively gives six custard creams’ worth of sugar.

The new formula is, however, lower in calories – 88 per glass, down from roughly 175.

TASTE TEST: The reduced sweetness makes it easier to drink quickly, leaving you wanting more. As refreshing as the original.

HEINZ SPAGHETTI HOOPS IN TOMATO SAUCE

NUTRITION per halftin CALORIES ............. 105

TOTAL FAT .......... 0.5g SATURATED FAT .......................

0.1g

SUGAR ...............

7.9g

SALT ....................

0.8g IS IT REALLY HEALTHIER?

HEINZ spaghetti are a childhood favourite – but the old formula was often criticised for its sweet sauce, with two-and-half teaspoons of sugar in a single serving.

The newest recipe has had its sugar content reduced by a quarter, compared to the original, and it now contains the equivalent of a heaped teaspoon of honey and less than a quarter of the recommended daily intake for adults. It’s worth noting that some of this sugar is naturally occurring in the tomatoes – which aren’t the kind we’re told to limit. Salt is reduced too, to a quarter of a teaspoon, and 25 per cent of the daily allowance for a child aged four to six. The calorie counts are relatively

unchanged, which means the manufacturers have upped the amount of spaghetti – keeping kids fuller for longer.

TASTE TEST: The sauce didn’t taste as rich or tangy, but there was more pasta, and less of the slimy sauce for it to swim in, keeping our taster full until dinner time.

KELLOGG’S COCO POPS

NUTRITION per bowl CALORIES ............... 115 TOTAL FAT .............. 0.6g SATURATED FAT.0.3g SUGAR ...................... 5.1g SALT ........................... 0.2g ARE THEY REALLY HEALTHIER?

SUGARY cereals that lure in children using cartoon characters and bright colours have long been a target for anti-junk food campaigners. We requested the historical nutritional information but the company did not supply this in full.

However, public records show that two decades ago, 40 per cent of one bowl of the most popular, Coco Pops, was pure sugar. In 2017, the recipe was overhauled to reduce sugar content – and then again in 2018. Now a 30g bowl contains just over one teaspoon – less than in a handful of raisins. Glucose syrup is also listed, which often contains the teeth-rotting glucose carbohydrates seen in the new Lucozade recipe, although the company couldn’t reveal exactly how much. Calories-wise, new and old are identical – totalling a surprisingly small percentage of the daily calorie limit, roughly the same as a slice of toast with a little butter.

Coco Pops are also fortified with a host of essential vitamins and minerals, including B vitamins and iron, and half of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin D. TASTE TEST: Much sweeter than our taster remembered, with the pool of milk less ‘chocolatey’ than his childhood bowls. This was disappointing to our tester, but he still reported enjoying the bowl and feeling ‘satisfied’ until lunchtime.

McVITIE’S DIGESTIVE BISCUITS

NUTRITION per biscuit CALORIES. 71 TOTAL FAT. 3.1g SATURATED FAT.1.5g SUGAR ...................... 2.2g SALT ........................... 0.2g ARE THEY REALLY HEALTHIER?

THE changes made to the digestive biscuit have been, to be frank, hardly worth it.

At the beginning of this year, McVitie’s reduced the sugar by a minuscule 0.2g and the salt by just five per cent. The calories and fat content remain the same. But as biscuits go, you could do a lot worse. Just half a teaspoon of sugar – less than a tenth of your daily limit – and the same calories count as an apple – isn’t too much to worry about, as long as you don’t eat the whole packet, of course. TASTE TEST: Indistinguishable from the previous version, with the perfect balance of sweet and salty. Still highly dunkable in tea.

WALKERS READY SALTED CRISPS

NUTRITION per 32g pack CALORIES ............... 171 TOTAL FAT .............. 10.4g SATURATED FAT.0.8g SUGAR ......................

Negligible

SALT ........................... 0.4g ARE THEY REALLY HEALTHIER?

Since 2004, the crisps company has been progressively reducing the salt and fat content of its most loved products. While 10g of fat might seem high – the same as in five Oreo biscuits — less than a gram of this is the saturated type that is linked to cardiovascular disease.

This is thanks to a switch from saturated fat-heavy palm oil to a type of sunflower oil that has been bred to contain more heart healthy fats – the same as the ones found in olive oil.

Now, a single serving bag of Walker’s Ready Salted contains less than five per cent of your daily recommended limit of saturated fat, compared to 13 per cent prior to 2004. That’s half the amount found in a packet of Pret A Manger’s vegetable crisps.

And a drop in salt means there’s now under a tenth of the daily recommendation in a single pack – great news for those watching their blood pressure. There’s fewer than 200 calories in each pack, which is unchanged from the original version, but a fine amount for an afternoon snack.

Those looking for something lower cal should opt for the baked version, which is even lower in fat and contains just over 100 calories.

TASTE TEST: New Walkers crisps leave far less of a greasy residue on the hands and taste less salty. Purely speculation, but it appears as though there are fewer actual crisps per packet, compared to a few years ago.

RIBENA BLACKCURRANT

NUTRITION per 250ml glass CALORIES ............... 53 TOTAL FAT .............. 0g SUGAR ...................... 11.6g SALT ........................... 0g ARE THEY REALLY HEALTHIER?

DESPITE being reformulated to spare it from the 2018 sugar tax, one glass of the much-loved purple beverage still contains nearly three teaspoons of sugar – roughly three Bourbon biscuits’ worth. This is an improvement – previously it was seven biscuits’ worth. Its calories have been cut by 50, achieved by replacing some of the excess sugar with zero-calorie artificial sweeteners instead.

The company also introduced a No Added Sugar version some years back, which contains just 6 calories and only a sprinkle of sugar derived from the fruit. Ribena is also fortified with the same amount of vitamin C as you’ll find in fruit juice. Still, the no-addedsugar version is a better choice. TASTE TEST: The reformulated Ribena still tastes very much like the original drink, but without the overwhelming sweetness. You may as well go for the noadded-sugar version – there’s no difference in taste.

CADBURY DAIRY MILK 30% LESS SUGAR

NUTRITION per 35g bar CALORIES ............... 176 TOTAL FAT .............. 11g SATURATED FAT.6.4g SUGAR ...................... 16g SALT ........................... 0g IS IT REALLY HEALTHIER?

YOU can still get the originalrecipe Cadbury Dairy Milk, but in 2018 it launched a low-sugar alternative, which contains a mix of real sugar and a high-tech sweetener called soluble maize fibre. This reduced the overall sugar count by a third – but it’s still as much as in half a can of regular coke. Replacing the sugar with maize fibre is a nifty trick – this ingredient slows down the influx of sugar into the blood, keeping you satisfied for longer.

And you get more nutritional bang for your buck, as the maize contains bowel-friendly fibre – roughly a fifth of the daily recommended amount. This bar is also 10g lighter. TASTE TEST: A little sweeter, less rich and more of a chewy texture than the denser alternative. The snag? The less intense flavour means it’s easier to eat more of it.