Kids are complex little creatures aren’t they. You think you’ve finally got them sussed and then they do a complete U-turn and you’re back to square one…and that’s especially true when it comes to food!
As you probably know by now, I’ve got two kids; the blue one, Fin who’s nearly 9 and the pink one, Flo who’s 7. Now, the inexperienced among you would presume that besides the fact they’re a different sex, if they’ve come from the same parents, been raised as a baby in pretty much the same way i.e. both breastfed, both fed baby and toddler meals lovingly made for them from scratch, both encouraged to eat as varied and as healthy a diet as possible, that they’d have the same food habits now.
Ohhhhhhhhh how far from the truth that is!
Fin is a foodie dream – he loves olives, spicy meats, pickled onions, raw onion, in fact the boy will give anything a go and it’s a pleasure to watch him eat. Flo, on the other hand, is a right fussy madam – yes she’ll eat every fruit going and for a kid she’s not too bad with the veggies, but she’s not willing to try new things, she won’t eat anything remotely flavoursome (although bizarrely her life isn’t complete without marmite) and for the first 2 years of her life we may or may not have been the reason for her believing that all meat was chicken…beef was brown chicken, ham was pink chicken…you get the gist!
Trying to come up with different food ideas that suit everyone’s tastebuds, whilst being healthy and interesting is tricky to say the least. I’ve pretty much got the dinner thing sorted, but it’s the lunchboxes that I struggle with, because well it can hardly be exciting opening up the lid to find a marmite sandwich and carrot sticks time and time again, can it? Packed lunches should be a thing of excitement and let’s face it, as a kid, lunch is one of the highlights of the day. I want to keep it healthy and make sure they’re packed with a good balance of fruit, veg, protein and some healthy carbs, but there’s got to be a bit of a treat in there as well…I just refuse to give them a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar (yep I am that mum!)
I was recently sent some fruity oat bars from Pulsin that are aimed specifically at kids. The packaging is brightly coloured and decorated with pictures of cartoon woodland animals, and best of all the flavours are kid-friendly. I figured what better test than to try them out on the market they’re aimed at…my kids…so here I present you with Fin and Flo’s Pulsin fruity oat bar review:
Orange Choc Chip
(Fin – 10/10) (Flo – 3/10)
OK so that’s a big difference in score, and absolutely highlights the difference in them. The problem here is that Flo doesn’t like chocolate orange as a flavour, however she was willing to give it a go and when she first started chewing she seemed to like it, but as the flavour developed it was clear she wasn’t keen. She did say that had it just been chocolate flavour she would have liked it – although I’m guessing the bar then wouldn’t have had any fruit content… Fin on the other hand absolutely loved this one, in fact it was his favourite. He loved the chocolate taste, loved the orange taste and it took him very little time to polish his bit off.
Blackcurrant & Apple
(Fin – 9/10) (Flo – 10/10)
This flavour went down really well with both of them. They loved how the bar looked; speckled with blackcurrant and nice big chunky bits of dried apple, although Fin did comment that he would have liked it to taste slightly more appley than it did. Flo finished hers really quickly and wanted more and said she liked the fruity taste. For me there was a less obvious taste with this bar than the choc orange one and maybe that’s why it appealed to the kids more. Both said they would like me to get more of them and that they would really like them either in their lunchboxes or as an after school snack
Strawberry
(Fin – 0/10) (Flo – 6/10)
This one didn’t go down well at all. Fin very much had preconceptions about what this would taste like – he likes strawberries, but not so keen on strawberry flavoured things – so perhaps he’d already unfairly decided he wasn’t going to like it. Kids are tough critics as we well know, so the fact that both of them spat it out speaks volumes. So, what was their problem with it? Too powdery tasting, too creamy, a cheesy yogurt type taste, too sweet. Flo was a bit kinder as you can see, but I think she really liked the pink packaging!
Based on the kids reviews I’d say that the overall winner would have to be the Blackcurrant & Apple flavour, because if I was only going to buy one pack this is the one that went down best with both of them. And that’s absolutely fantastic because from a parent’s point of view it’s the one that looked and smelt the most natural and I have to agree with them that it was the nicest tasting bar – they were kind enough to let me have a teeny nibble of each of them 🙂
All of the bars are gluten free, dairy free, soya free, nut free and contain 1 of your 5 a day which is absolutely great for kids with allergies or those that are just a bit fussy and need convincing to eat more fruit. They are available in packs of 6 and can be bought from the Pulsin website.
*Products gifted for review.
