Pick of the bunch

What is the best canned fruit?

Buying canned fruit used to be easy but now there’s choice: heavy syrup, light syrup, juice, or with no added sugar. For those concerned about sugar and without the time to compare nutrition information panels (NIPs), this is confusing. We set out to help by comparing three varieties of a leading brand for nutrition, cost, and taste.

Nutrition comment

Despite a common belief that fruit should be minimised because of its sugar content, this is not the case. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends limiting sugar to less than 10 per cent total kilojoules (5 per cent for optimum health) but it is not the sugar in whole fruit (or milk) they are referring to. This kind of sugar is called ‘‘intrinsic sugar’’ – found within the context of a whole food rather than extracted as in processed sugar, fruit juice, and syrups. Extracted/syrup sugar is called ‘‘free sugar’’ and it is this sugar WHO recommends we restrict. Nutritionally, cans with no or very little free sugar are best.

Bottom line

Go for varieties with the least free sugar. With Watties this was the variety with no added sugar. Try to avoid buying fruit canned in syrup or juice.

Products are tested by nutritionist Bronwen King and a diverse, randomly selected group.