Thought It Was a Healthy Snack? It May Be a ‘Hidden Threat’

Milk tablets and milk bites may look like dairy snacks, but their product standards and ingredients can reveal important differences. Learn how to check labels, identify free sugars and choose more wisely.

Have you bought ‘healthy snacks’? Which ones have you eaten? Although cravings are common, we understand the effect snacks can have on health, so many people give priority to dairy snacks such as milk tablets, baked milk bites and cheese sticks:

‘They have milk and calcium, so they must be healthier than sweets or crisps.’

But sometimes the thing you worry about really does happen: the packet of ‘milk tablets’ or ‘milk bites’ in your hand may actually be tablet candy.

Now turn over the packaging of the milk tablets at home and look for the ‘product type’ or ‘product standard’ field. If it says SB/T 10347 (the tablet-candy standard), there are no requirements at all for protein content or milk content.

In other words, compared with genuine dairy products, these so-called ‘healthy snacks’ can look and taste similar, while being fundamentally very different.

Two Traps of ‘Fake Milk Tablets’

Trap 1: The Product Standard Can Be Misleading

Some milk tablets on the market follow the tablet-candy standard (SB/T 10347-2017). Under this standard, there are no hard requirements for protein content or milk content. Manufacturers can formulate products freely—compressing large amounts of sugar, flavourings and additives into a tablet; as long as it tastes milky, it can be called a ‘milk tablet’.