The shopper ‘checked all day’ and shared her list on social media
A shopper has shared a list of Easter eggs she claims she’s found that are free of palm oil, many of which are available in several common UK supermarkets, like Tesco, Asda, Aldi and more. This year, Easter Sunday is on April 5. Key dates surrounding the holiday include Good Friday on April 3, and Easter Monday on April 6.
Many people celebrate Easter Sunday by tucking into Easter eggs, typically made from chocolate. As tasty as chocolate can be, it is important to eat it in moderation and to always check the label, especially for sugar content, to ensure you don’t go over the NHS’ recommended daily allowance.
The NHS suggests that adults and children aged 11 and up should limit their daily intake of ‘free sugars’ (including added sugars, syrups, and fruit juices) to no more than 30g. That’s about seven teaspoons or sugar cubes. For younger kids, they should have even less – 19g for those aged four to six years and 24g for kids aged seven to ten years.
Besides sugar, checking labels on processed foods is important to identify other ingredients that may not be very healthy if consumed in large quantities. One common ingredient often found in sugary foods like chocolate is palm oil.
What is palm oil, and what do experts say about it?
Palm oil is a versatile vegetable oil derived from the reddish pulp of the African oil palm tree. It is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world, appearing in about 50% of supermarket products, like snacks, soaps, and cosmetics, because it is cheap, stable, and neutral-flavoured, as explained by the World Wide Fund (WWF).
Manufacturers may use palm oil instead of cocoa butter because it’s cheaper. It can help make the chocolate smoother and keep it fresher for longer.
According to the NHS, palm oil is a high-saturated-fat food. The health service advises people to limit or avoid such saturated fats to lower the chances of getting heart disease and having a stroke. Replacing palm oil with healthier oils that contain unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, rapeseed oil, or sunflower oil, may help maintain healthy cholesterol levels.
According to Harvard nutrition experts, palm oil contains a high amount of saturated fat (about 50%), which can raise LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase the risk of heart problems if you eat too much. Even though it’s a ‘better choice’ than trans fats and has vitamin E, it’s usually not as healthy as liquid vegetable oils like olive oil.
What Easter Eggs are free from palm oil?
A shopper has shared a list of options she claims are free from the ingredient after “checking everywhere”. Money blogger Claire Roach, founder of Money Saving Central, recently took to social media to share her list of 68 reportedly palm oil-free Easter eggs.
“I’ve been around every supermarket and read the ingredients of every Easter Egg available this year,” she claimed on Facebook. “Managed to find 68 palm oil-free ones.” She accompanied her caption with a string of photos of each Easter egg she found.
She posted her full list of the eggs on Money Saving Central, including milk, dark and other flavour options, which she claims is as follows:
- Cadbury Creme Egg (White)
- Terry’s Mini Eggs (White)
- Tony’s Chocolony Original and Salted Caramel
- Guylian seahorse egg
- Thorntons Dino, Rabbit and Unicorn eggs, plus the Bunnies (any that don’t have the cream-filled sweets in)
- Hotel Chocolat (the entire range except anything containing biscuit)
- Lindt Gold Bunny eggs (Lindt eggs are all palm oil free, but their cream-filled sweets, such as Lindor, are not)
- Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the difference’ The Milk one and The Dark one
- The chocolate egg basket hunts
- Nomo Salted Popcorn and Original
- Nomo Cookie Dough
- Tesco Finest salted pretzel Egg
- Toblerone edgy and Goldern Edgy
- M&S Easter animals (Dog, Hippo, Pony, Dinosaur, Sloth)
- M&S Milk and Dark pretzel Egg
- M&S Giant Buttons Egg
- M&S Loaded with pretzels, sea salt, almond nougat and caramel Egg
- M&S Crispy Clouds Egg
- M&S Very Morish Munch Egg
- M&S Speckled Eggs Egg
- M&S Dark Chocolate Egg
- M&S extra thick pistachio Egg
- Free From Hamish the Cow
- Ferrero Rocher Classic Egg
- The best Blonde chocolate, caramel, pretzel and honeycomb egg
- The best Belgian chocolate latte crunch egg
- The best dark chocolate with sea salt egg
- Tesco free from caramel crunch egg
- Aldi Dark chocolate, coffee and cocoa nibs egg
- Aldi Milk chocolate, pretzel, honeycomb and fudge egg
- Aldi White chocolate, strawberry and granola egg
- Asda Pitashio and Himalayan salt white chocolate egg
- Asda Orange and Ginger dark chocolate egg
It is worth double-checking the labels on Easter eggs if you wish to avoid certain ingredients, especially if you have an intolerance or allergy. Claire’s Facebook post has attracted plenty of attention, with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.
Many people thanked Claire for sharing her list. A few people weren’t too sure her findings were correct; however, she emphasised that she ‘spent all day checking’.
