Next time you’re packing lunch for your kid, consider this: Only three types of packaged fruit snacks like dried fruit, fruit puree and canned fruit with juice, meet the recommendations for high-nutrition snacks set by dietary guidelines. Food scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that dried fruit has the best overall nutritional profile — the highest nutrient density and fibre content, and the lowest added sugar. On the other hand, fruit-flavoured snacks like gummies, which should be avoided, have the lowest nutrient density and fibre content and the highest amount of added sugar, says the study that appears in the journal ‘Nutrients’. Other fruit snack options with low nutrient density include canned fruit packed in something other than juice, and dried flavoured fruit, both of which contain higher amounts of added sugar.
