Healthify your supermarket choices.
The “New” Nutella – A Nutritious Spread? [Inside the Label]
Nutella is hands down one of the tastiest spreads out there. A rich and creamy hazlenut and chocolate spread turns any toast into a culinary rockstar.
Ferrero , Nutella’s manufacturer, is now trying to ride the health wave by positioning itself as a healthy and nutritious start to the day. It invites you to treat yourself to a tasty balanced breakfast with Nutella:
Over 50 Hazelnuts per 13 oz. Jar
Contains No Artificial Colors
Contains No Artificial Preservatives
Here’s what they forget to tell you.
What you need to know:
A 2 tablespoon serving, which is what you’d spread on a toast, is 200 calories. It contains 11 grams of fat, 3.5 of which are saturated (18% of your daily recommended value). The 21 grams of sugar in a serving are equivalent to 5 teaspoonfuls!
Here is the ingredient list:
sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (from milk), soy lecithin: an emulsifier, vanillin: an artificial flavor.
As expected, the first ingredient is sugar.
Regarding the modified palm oil, it’s not exactly clear what has been done to the oil. In the past, Nutella used hazelnut oil, but then switched to cheaper oils which were hydrogenated. But ever since trans-fats have become synonymous with a looming death sentence, manufacturers have been looking for different solutions. Palm oil is naturally close to solid at room temperature, so does not require hydrogenation like some other liquidy oils. but it is high in saturated fat.
Soy lecithin is used to firm up the spread and keep the ingredients from separating.
Vanillin, is an artificial flavoring that is much cheaper than using real vanilla extract.
Let’s look again at the product highlights including our commentary:
Over 50 Hazelnuts per 13 oz. Jar – and over 50 teaspoons of sugar too!
Contains No Artificial Colors – but does contain artificial flavors
Contains No Artificial Preservatives – but includes modified palm oil
Nutritious? Hardly.
That said, we have a weakness for Nutella; not every thing we eat has got to be of perfect nutritious harmony. However, we certainly don’t appreciate being conned into believing a spreadable candy treat is anything but that.
What to do at the supermarket:
A jar of Nutella should last you a couple of months when used only occasionally, for example a packed lunch for the last day of the school week, or spread thinly on a Sunday morning crepe.
If you’re looking for a spread that will work hard for you on a daily basis, peanut butter is a more nutritious and affordable choice. Peanut butter (made with peanuts only) has just 3 grams of sugar vs. Nutella’s 21.
Get Fooducated: 
RSS Subscription or Email Subscription
Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/fooducate
Help us test our new food comparison tool: alpha.fooducate.com
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d8c04169-38b5-4daf-8e6d-f4d57b574966)
Interesting. Very interesting. I appreciate your style of reporting…it’s very responsible.
I’ve never had Nutella because I fear I’d eat the entire jar in one sitting, but now I have better reason to avoid it…I’ll stick with natural nut butters with 1-2 ingredients. Thank you for another great post.
Nutella was a staple of my childhood in 70s France, but nowadays I eat gianduja paste made by other companies, like “Nocciolata” by Agrimontana. They tend to have a higher proportion of hazelnuts and less oil, and taste better. At least Ferrero discontinued the practice of using peanut oil in the US version of Nutella.
Nutella’s taste is very hard to reproduce by competitors because Ferrero has cornered a huge proportion of the supply for Piemont hazelnuts, using long-term contracts. 80% of the world’s hazelnut supply comes from Turkey, and while those are fine nuts, they do not have quite the flavor of the Piemontese nuts.
I’m personally not afraid of saturated fat, so that part of the palm oil is not an issue to me. The environmental impact of Palm Oil is another thing! The Rainforest Action Network has been working hard to increase awareness of where palm oil comes from and how unsustainable farming of palm oil impacts ALL of us (even those who aren’t pigging out on Nutella!) http://ran.org/the_problem_with_palm_oil/
Best bet? Create your own nutbutter using ingredients that are good, clean and fair!
Not a big fan of Nutella… but if saturated fat is an issue, peanut butter will provide the same amount per 2 Tbsp. serving (which, by the way, is a lot of spread for one slice of bread, unless you’re trying to gain weight). Almond butter costs more than PB (but less than hazelnut), but tastes great and has half the saturated fat (but slightly less protein and more total fat). To make your own chocolate nut butter spread, try melting semisweet chocolate chips in microwave or double boiler, then gradually stir it into some almond butter. Of course, chocolate chips contain sugar, but anything with chocolate is going to contain some sugar, because the stuff isn’t naturally sweet.
“Spread thinly” is the real key with anything so dense in calories/fat; i.e., deprogram yourself from what advertisements and restaurants use for a portion size, and you’ll be able to enjoy more foods without worry.
Awesome detective work! I’ve always been suspicious of Nutella and it’s artificial vanilla…
I’ve found something similar (homemade chocolate hazelnut spread) that uses: hazelnuts, cocoa powder, agave nectar, vanilla extract, hazelnut oil and salt – that’s it!
Check it!
Wow,
This is really terrible.
I was doing a project on food and I chose crepes.
I looked at this to find the calories.
NOW THERE IS 119.41 calories in plain Nutella crepes