It says 'real potato' - and it really is

Maggi Creamy Mash $2.89 per 100g. Photo / Wendyl Nisson

I was absolutely amazed at how good this tasted. Considering you simply pour the contents of the sachet into a bowl, then add some boiling water, I was convinced this would taste salty and processed.

What I tasted was, to my palate, simply mashed potato, and quite a nice mashed potato, too. But why does it contain beverage whitener?

Ingredients (in order of greatest quantity first)

Potato (77%) (contains sulphites)

The packaging says "made with real potato" so that is good. I can only think the sulphites become involved when the potato is dehydrated into a powder form.

Seasoning mix: flavour (contains milk), salt, vegetable fat, sugar, colour (100)

Because the flavour contains milk and the packet says "no artificial colours or flavours", I'm hopeful this is a natural flavour. This is quite a high salt product, with 340mg of sodium per 25g serve, but it is low in sugar at 2.5g or just over half a teaspoon per serve. The colour is curcumin/turmeric, a natural orange/yellow colour.

Skim milk: powder

This is dehydrated skim milk

Creamer: Beverage whitener (glucose syrup solids, vegetable oil (contains soy), sodium caseinate (from milk), mineral salts (340, 451), emulsifiers (471, 481), anti-caking agent (551), antioxidant (306))

This initially gave me the jitters, because beverage whitener is a powder Americans put in their coffee to make it look and taste like it has milk added. So I presume that is why it's in here, because a big component of mashed potato is milk. The mineral salts are potassium phosphate (340) and potassium tripolyphosphate (451) as preservatives, the emulsifiers are mono and diglycerides of fatty acids (471) and sodium lactylate (481) to keep the oil and water mixed together, and anti-caking agent silicon dioxide to stop it clumping. The antioxidant is tocopherols (306) which is Vitamin E.

Cream: powder (contains milk)This is dehydrated cream.

My recommendation

Okay, so it has beverage whitener in it, which is a mix of oils, milk and additives, but it is mostly potato, which is a real food.

I would rather see kids coming home from school and mixing up a bowl of this mashed potato with a bit of grated cheese for protein than having a chemical cocktail of nasty instant noodles. It's a lot easier and the artificial additive load is a lot lower.