Nut nougat creams put to the test
Smeared: Nutella and Milka rattle through the Ökotest
Nutella on the test stand
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Big shock in the Ökotest editorial team: The favorites among the nut nougat creams Nutella and Milka smear completely. What are the giant brands doing wrong? And which ones do the testers recommend now?
It’s a popular vice, the Nutella bread with a thick layer of butter underneath. Many people have known the nut nougat cream since they were children, and hardly anything has changed since then. Too bad actually. Because Ökotest took a closer look at what’s in the popular, sweet spread. The result is devastating. Nutella gets the worst grade, only Milka is just as bad. What exactly is going wrong with the big brands?
First there is the sugar. With more than 56 percent, Nutella and Milka are the sweetest spreads in the test. For comparison: Rapunzel’s nut nougat cream manages with 34 grams of sugar per 100 grams. In addition, like many other products, both contain mineral oil components, the hydrocarbons MOSH. MOSH accumulate in the body, although it is not yet clear what they do to the body. But they are a contaminant in the human body, writes Ökotest.
Too much sugar, artificial flavor and hardly any nuts
What the testers also complain about is that both Nutella and Milka cannot do without artificial flavoring or the flavoring ingredient vanillin. And to top it all off, Milka’s “hazelnut cream” contains just five percent hazelnut mass, by far the lowest content in the entire test. And those were just the ingredients.
In addition, Ökotest criticizes other points. For example, that Nutella and Milka calculate the calorie content on the front of the product as small with unrealistic portion sizes. Or the lack of transparency about their efforts to ensure better working conditions in the countries where the critical ingredients (hazelnuts, cocoa and palm oil) are cultivated. The surprising conclusion of the testers: The discounters and supermarkets come off best with their own brands in terms of responsibility.
So which nut nougat cream can we eat now? The testers cannot unreservedly recommend any of the 21 products tested. After all, the organic cream from dm (2.95 euros for 400 g) and the own brand Ja! from Rewe (1.49 euros) with the overall grade “Good”, even if the sugar content of both products is higher.