HiPP Organic Breakfast Rings - 135g

HiPP Organic Breakfast Rings, 135 g, from 15 months

HiPP Organic Breakfast Rings are an organic breakfast cereal for young children from 15 months, in a 135 g resealable foil pouch. They are colored rings built on 88 percent organic cereals with 12 percent fruit and vegetable juice concentrates and added vitamin B1. There is no added sugar and no added flavoring. A bowl is 20 g of rings with 125 ml of milk, and they can also be eaten dry as a snack.

The point of a ring shape at this age is independence. At 15 months a child is working out how to get a loaded spoon from bowl to mouth, and a ring is forgiving of that: it sits on a spoon, it can be picked up with fingers when the spoon fails, and it is large enough to see. HiPP describes the pack as suited to first attempts at self-spooning, which is exactly the skill being practiced.

The grain content is the substance of the pack. 88 percent organic cereals made up of wheat flour, wholegrain barley flour, wholegrain oat flour and wholegrain wheat flour, so three of the four cereal components are wholegrain. All of them carry gluten. The remaining 12 percent is juice concentrate from apple, carrot and blackcurrant, and that is what gives the rings their three colors and their flavor.

On sugar, HiPP makes a specific and checkable statement. It notes that the World Health Organization recommends a sugar content below 15 percent for cereals, and that these rings contain only sugar from their natural ingredients and come in well below that figure. The panel bears that out: 6.7 g of sugars per 100 g, which is under half the 15 percent threshold. No sugar is added.

There is also one added nutrient. HiPP states the rings are rich in vitamin B1, which is important for the nervous system and which is required by law in children's cereals. That is the authorized ground for the statement and nothing beyond it is claimed here.

As an organic toddler breakfast cereal this is a pack with two uses: a milk bowl in the morning, or dry rings handed over between meals. It is a European baby food made to the EU organic standard from ingredients HiPP describes as valuable and strictly tested.

Where this one sits in a toddler's day

HiPP puts this at breakfast and says why: the first meal of the day matters for a young child's nutrition, and a child needs energy for a good start. A cereal that is 88 percent grain and 76.5 g of carbohydrate per 100 g is built for that job rather than for the end of the day.

It also works as a dry snack, and HiPP says so on the pack. That is unusual for a cereal and it is a genuine convenience: the same pouch covers the morning bowl and the handful offered mid-morning, which means one pack rather than two. The 135 g pouch is small enough to travel.

At 15 months the texture question is real, and HiPP is careful about it. The instruction is to check whether your child can already chew the rings, and if not, to let them swell in the milk for a few minutes until the texture is soft enough. That is a better approach than assuming either way, because children reach this skill at different points.

How to prepare HiPP Breakfast Rings

As a dry snack instead

If you are offering the rings dry rather than in milk, HiPP prints two rules for that: do not give them to a child who is lying down, and supervise your child while they are nibbling. There is no liquid softening them in that case, so the chew check matters more, not less.

Nutrition per 100 g

This is the panel as it stands for this product. It reads the way a grain-led cereal should: carbohydrate dominant, protein respectable at nearly 10 g, fat low, and salt close to nothing.

The sugar figure is the one worth dwelling on. At 6.7 g per 100 g the rings sit well under the 15 percent ceiling the World Health Organization recommends for cereals, and all of it comes from the apple, carrot and blackcurrant juice concentrates rather than from added sugar.

A 20 g bowl is a little under a sixth of these figures, before the milk is counted. Figures are averages, as cereal panels always are.

What is in it

The declaration as it stands on this product: contains GLUTEN (WHEAT, BARLEY, OATS). May contain traces of MILK, SOY, TREE NUTS, SESAME, and MUSTARD.

Read plainly, that is four cereal flours, three juice concentrates and one added vitamin. Eight items, three of them wholegrain flours, and nothing added to color, flavor or sweeten beyond the fruit and vegetable juices themselves.

• 88% organic cereals
• Three wholegrain flours
• 12% fruit and vegetable juices
• No added sugar
• No added flavoring
• Rich in vitamin B1
• Three different flavors
• EU organic certified
• Contains gluten

How far a 135 g pouch goes

This one divides cleanly, because HiPP gives both numbers. The pouch is 135 g and a bowl takes 20 g, so a pouch is about seven bowls of cereal, each made up with 125 ml of milk.

A dry cereal has no fluid yield of its own, so bowls is the measure that means something here. If you are offering the rings dry as a snack rather than in milk, a pouch goes further than seven servings, because a handful is less than 20 g.

The 135 g pouch size and the 20 g and 125 ml figures are HiPP's own for this product. The bowl count and the milk total are those figures divided and multiplied, not separate measurements. A tablespoon varies, so treat about 7 tablespoons as a guide to the 20 g rather than a substitute for it.

Product highlights

• Organic toddler breakfast cereal
• From 15 months
• 135 g resealable pouch
• 88% organic cereals
• Three wholegrain flours
• No added sugar
• No added flavoring
• Rich in vitamin B1
• Well under the WHO sugar ceiling
• For first self-spooning
• Also eaten dry as a snack
• Contains gluten

Frequently asked questions

Other HiPP cereals and what goes with these

• HiPP Organic Crunchy Muesli, 200 gThe same 15 month stage, with 74 percent grain and crunchy shapes.
• HiPP Organic Berry Muesli, 200 gA berry muesli with wholegrain flakes, from 12 months.
• HiPP Favourite Stars, 30 gA grain snack in star shapes, from 12 months.
• HiPP Organic Fruits and Flakes CerealA fruit muesli HiPP places from the 10th month.
• HiPP Crunchy Dinos Wild Berry, 300 gA crunchy muesli in dinosaur shapes for older children.
• HiPP Organic Baby Bircher Muesli, 250 gThe baby end of the range, from the 6th month.