Top picks for healthy tucker

Gluten-free Weet-Bix topped the magazine's annual awards. Photo / iStock

Magazine hands out yearly awards for favourite nutritious selections at the supermarket

Gluten-free Weet-Bix and frozen mango have topped Healthy Food Guide magazine's annual awards.

The awards are made from a selection of products nominated by readers with the not-so-healthy options in a "Hall of Shame", including cookies, beef jerky, fruit drinks, light coconut milk, noodles, relish, jam and hazelnut spread.

The products are judged by a panel of nutritionists and Healthy Food Guide's editor and editor-in-chief, who rate them based on nutritional profile, value for money, innovation and taste.

Be Natural took out the award for best snack bar, for its Trail Bar with sultanas, dates, almonds and peanuts consisting of 60 per cent wholegrains, nuts and fruits, it was judged a "tasty little snack" that is low in kilojoules and a good source of fibre.

Gluten Free Weet-Bix was judged the best gluten-free staple, as it "tastes just like Weet-Bix" and low in saturated fat, sugar and sodium.

Frozen fresh mango from Countdown's Select brand was awarded the best sweet treat for being "mango and nothing else, delicious".

And for the best vegetarian, Bean Supreme's Black Bean Beetroot Burger patty lived up to its name. With 49 per cent beans and 23 per cent beetroot, it was judged to be "substantial and tastes great".

A spokeswoman for Bean Supreme said the product was designed especially for Kiwis.

"When we were developing our Beetroot Burger we observed three key consumer insights, favourite vegetarian cafe menu items, the growth in consumption of ancient grains and super grains and last but not least, Kiwis' love for beetroot."

Runners-up for each category included Ceres Organic Raw Goodness Cacao Almond Fig Food Bar, Sealord Hoki Crunchy Crumb Gluten Free Crumb, Original Frooze Balls and Tonzu Organic Tofu.

Healthy Food Guide nutritionist Claire Turnbull said some items in the Hall of Shame might surprise.

While "people know that cookies and energy drinks aren't great", the unhealthy nature of some instant noodle products could be unknown.

"What people don't know about a lot of instant noodles, not all of them, but a lot of them, they're actually prefried to make them cook faster," she said.

Relishes could also have a lot of sugar lurking in the ingredients list as much as a third in one product reviewed.

"If you make a tomato relish at home, you can control the amount of sugar that you have in it," she said. "But quite a few of the relish brands are mostly sugar, the first ingredient is sugar or sugar syrup."

However, she said the point of the awards is to make people make better choices, not to outlaw treats.

"If you use these kinds of products every now and then, it's not the end of the world, if you have one odd cookie it's not the end of the world," she said. "But if people are buying those noodle pots for lunch every day, the fruit drinks for kids every day which some people do then it's just being mindful that they're not as nutritious as people might think."