No, your Fruit Pastilles habit will not lead to glowing health.
Asked by: Olivia Black, Derby
Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles are flavoured with the concentrated juice of seven fruits, but the amount they contain is tiny. Figures from Nestlé (Rowntree’s parent company) claim that 11.5 tubes of sweets have as much vitamin C as a portion of fruit.
But the five-a-day campaign isn’t really about vitamins – it’s about fibre and eating a varied diet. Most people in the UK aren’t deficient in vitamin C, and the NHS specifically says that vitamin pills don’t count as your five-a-day. Those 11.5 tubes of Fruit Pastilles have no fibre and 2,125 calories – most of it sugar.
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Luis trained as a zoologist, but now works as a science and technology educator. In his spare time he builds 3D-printed robots, in the hope that he will be spared when the revolution inevitably comes.
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