Diet Food Reviews
Fruit Smiles
By: | Sep 18, 2008
Fruit Smiles are the fruit snacks produced by Walmart's Great Value brand and are described as "naturally and artificially fruit flavored snacks." When I was a little kid, I loved eating fruit snacks. They were bite-sized and packed with fruity flavor. From a more adult perspective, it's important to remember their disadvantages - a lot of them are made with more sugar (and high fructose corn syrup) than fruit (juice).
The front of the box for these snacks boasts a few positive nutritional attributes. Each serving/pouch has 100% of the daily value of vitamin C and no trans fat - which is to be expected from any product that's mostly sugar. But despite the name "Fruit Smiles", the ingredients are primarily corn syrup, sugar, and fruit juice (in that order). Each packet holds several cylindrical smiley faces in 4 flavors: sour apple, watermelon, blue raspberry, and tropical punch. I wasn't expecting an authentic fruit flavor, but wow, they were tart! They had a nice chewy texture, but they left a very tangy feeling on my teeth.
Each pack of Fruit Smiles (almost 1 ounce each) provides 100 calories, 1 gram of total fat and 22 grams of carbohydrates,13 grams of which are sugars. I paid $1.44 at my local Walmart for this box of 10 individual pouches.
Most fruit snacks will contain a lot of sugar, even if it's made from fruit juice (typically concentrate). If you like fruit snacks, try to find brands with less sugar. Florida's Natural Au'some Blueberry Fruit Juice Nuggets contains 50 calories and 10 grams of sugar per 0.5 ounce serving, which is less than these.
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I loved these as a kid...not sure I could eat them now though. :)
Wait how are these a diet food? Aren't they just sugar? I used to eat them as a kid too!
That's what we were saying Alexa. The name says "Fruit" but really, it's sugar - as are most of these "fruit snacks" - whether or not they're made from fruit juice concentrate.