For Bournvita
For Horlicks
As with most packaged food products, the ingredients of the malt-based drinks are a dead giveaway. While the primary ingredient is clearly malt — often a barley or cereal derivative — the subsequent ingredient is almost always sugar.
Take Complan for instance. A 100g of the malt-based powder contains 18g of protein, 11g of fat and 62g of carbohydrates, of which 24g is sugar. Using the same metric, Bournvita is 7g protein, 1.8g fat and 85.2g carbohydrates, of which 32g is sugar. Horlicks is 11g protein, 2g fat, and 79g of carbohydrates, which includes 13.5g of sugar.
Complan recommends a 33g serving, which would make one serving contain nearly 8g of sugar. Bournvita recommends 20g, making it 6.5g of sugar, and Horlicks doesn’t explicitly recommend serving sizes.
“Horlicks Classic Malt has 21.3g of carbohydrates of which added sugar is 3.7g per serve that is well within the NIN recommendation,” said a GSK spokesperson.
India doesn’t have recommendations for sugar consumption but the latest WHO mandate recommends a cap of 100 calories (5 per cent) in a 2,000-calorie diet.
A gram of sugar provides four calories. At 8g of sugar, Complan provides 32 calories; at 20g, Bournvita provides 80 calories, and Horlicks provides 17 calories.
“All the nutrition children get from these beverages is actually from milk,” said Priya Kathpal, nutritionist and founder of Nutrify. “These products only serve the purpose of enhancing the taste of milk that children tend not to like. Constantly feeding such products to children is utterly an ill-informed decision by parents.”
The primary reason why Kathpal says so is the fact that sugar is addictive. “This also leads to children never drinking milk by itself and always associating it with a sugary, chocolate-filled taste,” she added.
“These beverages might work for children because they’re so active,” said Ishi Khosla, a clinical nutritionist at the Centre for Dietary Counselling, Delhi, and founder of The Celiac Society of India. “But if these beverages are consumed regularly, especially in adults, the excess sugar, which comes with small amounts of supplemental value, needs to be factored in and accounted for.”
The micronutrients question
Another of the ‘healthy aspects’ that these malt-based drinks play up is their micronutrient content. Micronutrients are essential in small quantities as they enable the human body to perform and enhance physiological functions.
Calcium, for example, is beneficial to the bones, vitamins of type B are necessary for energy production, Vitamin C for creation of collagen and neurotransmitters, Vitamin D for immunity, magnesium for regulating blood pressure, potassium for maintaining fluid in cells, zinc for healing wounds, iodine for thyroid regulation, among others.
The lack of these micronutrients, in our diets, leads to nutrient deficiency, malnutrition and can even lead to diseases.
According to this report, two heaped tablespoons of Bournvita mixed with a mug of milk provides around 45 mg of potassium, 25 mg of sodium, 1 g of protein, 6 g of sugars, 8 per cent of the daily Vitamin A, 10 per cent of the daily iron, 30 per cent of the daily Vitamin C, 15 per cent of daily Zinc, and 10 per cent of daily Magnesium necessary to the body. It also reportedly contains pro-health vitamins such as B9, B12, B2 and Vitamin D.
Complan claims to have “34 vital nutrients” including calcium, iron, iodine, vitamins A, E, C, and vitamin B12 to “help improve memory and math ability”. Horlicks “combines the natural goodness of cereals and milk with the promise of science to help give your kid wholesome nutrition”.
But even then, other factors are at play. Take Vitamin D for instance. It is recommended that all individuals, including children and adults, consume 15 micrograms (or 600 units) of Vitamin D a day. Bournvita Lil Champs, for example, contains 10 micrograms of Vitamin D per 100g. This does not even come close to daily requirements for children, who would otherwise have to consume nearly 10 tablespoons of it per day to meet norms.
