From calorie count to portion sizes, we wanted to find all the differences between Pop-Tarts in the US and UK. This is Food Wars.
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00:00 From calorie counts to portion sizes, we wanted to find out all the differences between Pop
00:04 Tarts in the US and the UK.
00:06 This is Food Wars.
00:11 In the UK, Pop Tarts come in one main size, an 8-pack.
00:14 You might also be able to find a 36-pack online, but these seem more geared towards retailers
00:18 rather than consumers, so for the purposes of Food Wars, we're not counting them.
00:21 In the US, our Pop Tarts come in seven size varieties.
00:25 Down here we have the 2-pack, 8-pack, 12-pack, 16-pack, the value pack, 32-pack, the family
00:31 pack, I don't know if you can see it, it says family on there, and the biggest amount, the
00:34 48-pack.
00:36 They probably also come in one box.
00:38 That means our biggest Pop Tart variety is 33.3% bigger than what you can get in the
00:43 UK.
00:44 But are the Pop Tarts the same size in both countries?
00:46 Let's measure them to find out.
00:48 So our UK Pop Tart was 8cm wide and 11cm long for a surface area of 88cm squared.
00:55 We will do the same.
00:57 3 by 4.
01:00 And of course, we're gonna weigh it.
01:02 And a Pop Tart in the US weighs 48g.
01:06 Our UK Pop Tart was banked on 50g, which I think is actually slightly more than it's
01:10 supposed to weigh.
01:11 Kellogg's woke up feeling a little generous today.
01:14 But what about the pastry to filling ratio, I hear you cry?
01:17 Well don't worry, we're gonna look at that too.
01:18 You can sort of like chisel off layers of pastry.
01:20 I mean, there's really not much jam in there.
01:23 That's a very thin layer of jam right there.
01:25 I think we might have done bad at this.
01:27 Just gone real bad.
01:28 So unfortunately we had to abandon the scrape test because that was not working.
01:31 Joe, if you pulled that off, you're a genius.
01:33 I don't know how you've done it.
01:34 However, on the back of the box of the Pop Tarts, it says that the fruit filling should
01:38 be 34% of the Pop Tart by weight.
01:41 If our maths are correct, this was a 50g Pop Tart.
01:43 34% of that should be 17g of jam.
01:46 Yeah, alright.
01:48 Hot, hot, hot.
01:50 Hot.
01:51 Ow.
01:52 I'm gonna get a wipe and put it on here.
01:57 Right?
01:58 We'll round up to 10g.
02:00 So that is this percentage of jam.
02:08 Here's all the Pop Tarts you can get in the US, you can't get in the UK.
02:11 And here are all the Pop Tarts from the UK that you can't find in the US.
02:14 Yes, it's just the one.
02:19 We got all of them.
02:20 I want to get this out of the way real quick.
02:21 There are currently two limited edition Pop Tarts out right now.
02:25 The Red, White, and Blueberry and the Frosted Strawberry Throwback.
02:29 I went to Walmart, guy said they didn't have them.
02:32 Also newer ones, there is an Apple Jack's Frosted Apple Cinnamon one, which is supposed
02:37 to be delivered to my house tomorrow.
02:39 I'm sorry.
02:40 But one new one we do have is Frosted Banana Bread, which is, looks like a Pop Tart.
02:45 Give it some extra frosting up top there.
02:47 Yeah, it tastes like banana bread.
02:50 That's just very good.
02:51 You can only find three Pop Tart varieties on sale in the UK, including Strawberry Sensation,
02:56 Frosted Chocotastic, and Hot Fudge Sundae.
02:59 These two you can also find in the US, so they're not exclusives, but this one is, the
03:02 Frosted Chocotastic.
03:03 While it has its own name, it does seem a little bit similar to the US Chocolate Fudge
03:07 one, so we'll take it out and have a look.
03:08 So this is a UK Frosted Chocotastic Pop Tart.
03:11 It's got the chocolate icing, the pastry itself is chocolate flavoured, and it's got these
03:15 little flecks of white stuff on it.
03:17 Ambitiously in my mind, I was hoping it might be like flaky sea salt, but it's a Pop Tart.
03:21 I think it's more likely to just be some icing.
03:26 Not too bad.
03:27 You also have a chocolatey filling on that as well.
03:29 So there's kind of like three levels of chocolate going on here.
03:32 Not too sweet either, actually.
03:34 All right, starting with the Frosted Chocolate Fudge.
03:37 Now let's compare this to what Harry got.
03:42 Chocolate on chocolate.
03:43 I know I'm just going to say the obvious, but this is like really chocolatey and fudgy.
03:48 Seeing as we only have three Pop Tarts, I figured I'd try the other ones too, just to
03:51 see how they stack up against the exclusive Chocotastic.
03:55 So this is our version of Hot Fudge Sundae.
03:57 Pastry wise, looks kind of similar to the chocolate one with the chocolate pastry, but
04:00 then it has something more resembling the strawberry icing.
04:04 I feel like this is probably a slightly lazy attempt to just kind of rehash things they
04:08 already have into a new product.
04:11 The filling looks pretty similar to the filling found on the Frosted Chocotastic.
04:15 Slightly lighter in color, so maybe they've gone for more of a fudge vibe rather than
04:18 just straight chocolate.
04:21 I think with a combination of the standard icing and the slightly different filling,
04:25 this has more of a well-rounded, balanced sweet flavor to it.
04:29 And of course, the classic strawberry Pop Tart.
04:31 Obviously visually this stands out because they have not gone for the chocolate pastry.
04:35 It's that very kind of almost alarmingly pale pastry color.
04:38 Pretty much the same icing I think that they've used on the ChocFudge Sundae.
04:43 It's the classic for a reason.
04:45 It's just really good.
04:46 It's a blueberry, alright, get in some fruit!
04:47 I wouldn't be able to guess what fruit this was just by looking at the outside, I mean.
04:51 Here in the US so far, one thing I've noticed, they're really skimping on the filling.
04:54 I know it's like dusty, but brown sugar cinnamon, beat up, ooh, this is like really smooth.
05:00 Also very dusty.
05:03 I honestly can't tell if the flavor is the frosting or the jam.
05:07 Cherry, I feel like this is like a flagship one.
05:10 AIM's not so great over there in the factory.
05:12 Already though, both on this side and this side, you can almost see the filling coming
05:15 out of it, right?
05:16 I'm starting to think a lot of the sweet fruit flavor is coming from the frosting and not
05:21 the inside.
05:23 Chocolate chip, alright, already this.
05:25 Can we get that sad trombone please?
05:28 It's like a doctor's signature, it's just right across it.
05:31 I can't read this, what does it say?
05:32 Oh, ooh, Pop Tart.
05:36 Ooh, this really irritates me, this really winds me up.
05:39 You gotta be kidding me with this.
05:42 Your mom or your school or your work, whenever it doesn't get Oreos, they get the knockoff
05:47 brand sandwich cookies.
05:49 It's like you'll eat them, but you're like, "Oh man, I kinda wanted Oreos."
05:53 That's what this tastes like, it's just like a knockoff of an Oreo.
05:57 Frosted confetti, ugh.
05:58 Don't make me eat this, please don't make me eat this.
06:05 It's like just eating straight frosting.
06:07 Next up, Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae.
06:10 Breakfast is served.
06:12 This looks like an absolute nightmare.
06:14 Imagine eating this and going to school.
06:17 Totally phoned in like that, drizzle.
06:22 It's very sweet.
06:23 Oh man.
06:26 A Pop Tart S'mores, Yuli's choice.
06:28 Okay, it tastes like a S'mores, you can see a little pocket of marshmallow there.
06:35 This is the first dual filling I think I've had, or at least I've noticed, and you know
06:38 what?
06:39 I don't really like it.
06:40 I can't believe we only had one exclusive, I feel like I'm really missing out on some
06:43 of those tasty American Pop Tarts.
06:44 Joe, can I get some of those?
06:46 No worries man, I gotcha.
06:48 Thank you.
06:51 So it looks like Joe has kindly shared with me some confetti cupcake Pop Tarts, the American
06:59 version of the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts, and some Frosted S'mores Pop Tarts.
07:04 And confetti.
07:05 I feel like Americans are just obsessed with eating sprinkles because it seems like every
07:09 kind of brand, whether it's chocolate, pastry, will have a kind of confetti cupcake birthday
07:13 cake flavor, and Pop Tarts are no exception.
07:16 American sprinkles look so much better than British sprinkles.
07:19 I know it's because they are using banned chemicals, which we don't have over here,
07:22 we have to opt for natural alternatives, but when it comes to baking, they just hold their
07:25 color so much better, they look a lot more vibrant.
07:28 I kind of get why you guys are using it.
07:32 Doesn't give me any pleasure to admit it, but that is really tasty.
07:35 It's got almost like a sort of cake batter taste to it, that filling, so it kind of is
07:39 like you're eating a confetti cupcake, or at least the batter of a confetti cupcake.
07:43 In my left hand I have a British Strawberry Sensation Pop Tart, in my right hand I have
07:47 the American Frosted Confetti Cupcake one.
07:49 Just because you wanted to point out the color difference, because that is wild.
07:53 Next up is the American version of the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts.
07:56 The American version of these look so much more fun than ours.
07:59 Taste wise they look pretty much the same, but the American one looks thicker.
08:03 The American one has this white icing filling, whereas in the UK I think they've gone for
08:07 more of a kind of like fudgy chocolate filling.
08:10 The difference between these two is kind of night and day.
08:12 The American one, better than ours in pretty much every way.
08:15 I tasted this at first and I wasn't disappointed by it per se, but now that I've had the comparison,
08:19 direct comparison with the US, this tastes like eating cardboard.
08:22 Finally it's the Frosted S'mores Pop Tart.
08:24 I've got to say, s'mores aren't really a thing in the UK.
08:27 In the UK we don't have graham crackers, or as we would rather say graham crackers.
08:30 Shout out to my dad, Graham.
08:33 Yeah, there we go.
08:36 There we go.
08:37 It's almost like a digestive biscuit.
08:38 These are pretty good.
08:40 This one looks maybe the scariest.
08:42 There's cookies and cream.
08:45 Whenever it's frosting inside, I know I'm in trouble.
08:50 Yuck.
08:52 Don't give this to a child ever, and most adults should also not eat this.
08:56 Grape.
08:57 Grape.
08:58 Fruit ones look how I think a pop tart's supposed to look.
09:01 They don't look that intimidating.
09:06 Grape is a really popular flavor in the US, but anyone in the US will tell you that grape-flavored
09:12 candy doesn't really taste like grapes.
09:14 They somehow invented a grape-like flavor, probably because grapes have a weaker flavor,
09:19 I think.
09:20 I'm not quite sure exactly how it came to be, but this tastes exactly like that fake
09:24 imitation, bubblicious bubblegum grape, you know what I'm talking about, grape soda.
09:29 It's not bad.
09:30 So far, all the fruit ones are better than any of the other ones, so yeah, Eggo.
09:34 How unnatural-looking is this?
09:36 You know you can take those classes that they were called, like, "sip and paint," where
09:40 everyone paints the same picture, same still life while they're sipping wine with their
09:44 friends?
09:45 This was the image they were painting, and this is what they painted drunk.
09:52 This does not in any way taste like an Eggo waffle.
09:54 I don't think it tastes like waffles at all.
09:56 What ruins it is this frosting on here.
09:59 This is so sweet.
10:00 Raspberry.
10:01 I have a feeling this is gonna be a good one.
10:05 Top tier right here.
10:07 These were optimized for fruit filling.
10:09 Wild berry.
10:10 So it's just the combination's wild, or these were found in the wild?
10:14 Oh no.
10:16 Alarm bells in my caveman DNA is going off.
10:20 Do not eat.
10:21 This is poisonous.
10:22 Do not eat.
10:23 Warning.
10:24 Warning.
10:25 Your ancestors who ate this died.
10:27 Let's go against millions of years of evolution and bite into this woefully bright-colored
10:33 piece of, I'm assuming, food?
10:35 We'll find out together.
10:36 With all the frosting on here, it's actually not that sweet compared to the other fruit
10:40 ones.
10:43 Play this part of the video to the ambulance driver when he asks what happened.
10:50 Boston cream.
10:51 Boston cream donut is this donut right here if you haven't seen it.
10:54 You can't even tell where the cream is compared to the color of the pastry.
11:00 What I'm about to say will come as no surprise to anyone watching this video, but this one
11:05 tastes completely artificial.
11:07 I know, right?
11:08 Can you believe it?
11:09 On to the next smaller pyramid.
11:12 Snickerdoodle.
11:13 Bland.
11:14 All right, now look at the unfrosted ones.
11:18 Unfrosted?
11:19 We've got strawberry, brown sugar, cinnamon, and blueberry.
11:24 Unfrosted v. frosted.
11:25 I was complaining how sweet they were, so maybe I'm more of an unfrosted guy and I don't
11:28 realize that, but this looks weird.
11:31 This looks like an army ration.
11:37 This one is sweeter, but not that much sweeter.
11:41 Don't you think with the frosting it'd be night and day?
11:43 They're pretty similar.
11:45 Simply frosted harvest strawberry.
11:48 There you go, no artificial colors.
11:50 Color from natural sources.
11:53 Once again, regular strawberry pop-tarts.
11:56 They look pretty similar, right?
11:58 This one even has more frosting on it.
12:02 Wow, they taste exactly the same as the artificial ones.
12:08 One other thing that we wanted to talk about was the toasted v. untoasted pop-tarts debate.
12:12 Now people have been debating for years whether it's better to eat your pop-tarts toasted
12:15 or straight out of the packet.
12:17 I will say in the UK this is less of a debate because I feel like most people are more likely
12:20 to toast their pop-tarts, even though they are safe to eat straight out of the packet.
12:24 However, we did notice that on the American ones that Joe sent over, there are some varying
12:27 instructions which kind of confused us.
12:29 Apparently in the US you can microwave them, which you're supposed to do in bursts of three
12:33 seconds until they're hot enough to eat, despite the fact that the British ones explicitly
12:37 tell you to not microwave them.
12:39 I'm assuming at some point someone tried to microwave them in the foil and was met with
12:42 a nasty surprise.
12:43 And also the American ones say that you can freeze them and eat them frozen.
12:47 Don't know why you would do that.
12:49 Frozen or semi-frozen pastry does not sound like it would be nice.
12:51 But we're not here for microwaved or frozen pop-tarts.
12:53 We're just going to heat a couple up in the toaster oven and then compare them to some
12:56 untoasted pop-tarts to see which ones I prefer.
12:58 All right, toasty boy going in.
13:01 Let's see if we can rectify that.
13:07 Also did you notice?
13:10 What is with Harry's giant toaster oven?
13:12 And the size of that thing, you'd get a regular toaster.
13:16 Ta-da!
13:17 Smells like toasted pastry.
13:21 Oh, it is falling apart.
13:26 So it's breaking apart already.
13:29 Untoast it.
13:31 Yeah, toasted is way better.
13:34 The filling is more flavorful.
13:36 The crispiness of the pastry.
13:37 I just am too lazy to toast them.
13:39 So this one on my right is the untoasted version and on my left is the toasted version.
13:43 I gotta say visually, not a lot has changed.
13:46 I was hoping for a little bit more browning while it was in the oven.
13:49 Still not much of a snap from the pastry, even when toasted.
13:51 But you can see that the filling has slightly liquefied.
13:55 Really impressive that they've actually managed to create a pastry that doesn't just burst
13:58 and leak all of the filling when it does get toasted.
14:01 I say impressive, probably just uses a lot of chemicals.
14:03 Whereas when you compare it to the untoasted one, even when you kind of squish it down,
14:07 that filling is not going anywhere.
14:11 I do prefer the toasted version.
14:13 As I sort of expected.
14:14 I think the main difference for me is actually in the filling.
14:16 Obviously the flavor doesn't change a lot when you toast it.
14:19 It's more the texture I think.
14:20 Just the fact that it does liquefy slightly gives it a much more pleasant texture when
14:23 you actually bite into this thing.
14:25 Also in the US, you get something called Pop-Tarts Bites.
14:28 These guys right here.
14:29 I have strawberry of course and confetti cake.
14:33 But you can also get brown sugar cinnamon, frosted blueberry, frosted chocolate fudge,
14:38 and strawberry banana.
14:39 I have no idea what these are.
14:41 No, these are not good.
14:45 Pop-Tarts also does collabs with other brands.
14:48 For instance, there's a Pop-Tarts Jenny's ice cream.
14:50 Coffee Mate has its own Pop-Tarts flavor.
14:53 And of course, Pop-Tarts cereal.
14:54 It was originally called Pop-Tarts Crunch, discontinued, but they renamed it after they
14:59 brought it back.
15:03 In the UK, an 8-pack of strawberry Pop-Tarts costs you £2.99, which is around $3.86.
15:10 That same box in the US is $4.49, or £3.47.
15:14 A 16.3% increase in the US.
15:17 Oof!
15:18 With the gouging, come on guys.
15:21 It's not surprising to me that Pop-Tarts are really popular in the US.
15:24 We love a quick and convenient breakfast.
15:26 They have positioned themselves in their advertising as a more convenient breakfast than cereal.
15:32 Because you know how inconvenient cereal is.
15:34 You gotta get the box, and the bowl, and the spoon, and the milk, and sit down and eat
15:39 it.
15:40 Not Pop-Tarts.
15:41 Cereal, too much work.
15:42 Pop-Tarts, way easier.
15:43 For me, the price increase proportion makes sense, because I've always seen Pop-Tarts
15:46 as more of a treat than an everyday breakfast food.
15:48 It was the sort of thing that my mum might have let me have as a weekend treat breakfast
15:51 if I had accompanied on her weekly shop and been very well behaved.
15:55 I will say that the marketing in the UK explicitly doesn't brand these as a breakfast food compared
15:59 to something like cereal.
16:01 There is no mention of the word breakfast anywhere on here.
16:03 They're just referred to as toaster pastries.
16:05 So I guess they could be construed as more of a snack.
16:08 Is the lack of breakfast talk the same in the US, Joe?
16:10 Or are you guys a bit less shameless about marketing desserts as breakfast foods for
16:13 children?
16:14 So I originally thought this was supposed to be breakfast food, but Harry makes a good
16:17 point.
16:18 It doesn't say breakfast anywhere on here.
16:20 Even the box says you can get them straight from the foil, toasted, stacked, or frozen.
16:24 But they really are not saying anything about breakfast.
16:27 So I went back and looked online.
16:28 In the 90s, I looked on YouTube.
16:30 I found a bunch of commercials where they said, "Specifically for breakfast."
16:34 They even quote, "Part of your complete breakfast."
16:37 So they did sometimes market them as breakfast foods and sometimes not.
16:41 And just for me, it sunk in that, yeah, you have these for breakfast in the morning when
16:44 you're in a hurry to get to school or work.
16:49 Here is the nutritional information for one strawberry Pop-Tart in the UK.
16:54 Let's be honest, they come in packs of two, so we're going to double those numbers for
16:56 a more accurate serving size reading.
16:59 Thank you, Harry.
17:00 Because in the US, we go straight for the two-tart serving size.
17:02 And here, our strawberry Pop-Tarts are...
17:06 It looks like the UK numbers are actually slightly higher than those in the US.
17:09 So I guess that means we're winning?
17:11 Now if calories are your thing, in the US, our cinnamon brown sugar Pop-Tarts have the
17:15 most, 400 per serving.
17:18 How about weights?
17:20 The unfrosted have even more calories, 410 per serving.
17:26 I don't know how that works either.
17:28 In 2021, somebody sued Kellogg's, claiming that Pop-Tarts contained way less strawberry
17:33 than what was presented on the packaging.
17:35 This case is ultimately dismissed as the judge said, quote, "No reasonable consumer could
17:40 believe from Kellogg's packaging that the breakfast table," hey, breakfast, perfect,
17:45 okay, "contains only strawberries or more strawberries than other ingredients such as
17:49 pears and apples."
17:50 The US packaging actually states that the strawberry Pop-Tarts contain 2% or less of
17:55 dry strawberries.
18:00 Here are all the ingredients of a UK strawberry sensation frosted Pop-Tart.
18:04 One thing to note is that the gelatin used in a UK Pop-Tart is explicitly labeled as
18:07 beef gelatin.
18:08 So unfortunately, this means that British Pop-Tarts are not suitable for vegetarians.
18:12 And here are all the ingredients in a US strawberry Pop-Tart.
18:18 Of the many differences between these two lists, there are a few ingredients we wanted
18:20 to highlight here.
18:21 The first is TBHQ or Tert-Butyl-Hydroquinone.
18:27 To be honest, quite.
18:30 This is a preservative which is used to extend shelf life or for added freshness as the US
18:34 label states.
18:35 The FDA has put limits on how much it can be used.
18:38 TBHQ can account for more than 0.02% of the oils in a food because the FDA doesn't have
18:45 evidence that greater amounts are safe.
18:48 While that doesn't mean that more than 0.02% is dangerous, it does indicate that higher
18:54 safety levels haven't been determined.
18:56 Research has linked TBHQ to health problems.
18:58 The National Library of Medicine found vision disturbances when it was consumed by humans,
19:02 as well as liver enlargement, neurotoxic effects, convulsions and paralysis in laboratory animals.
19:08 Pop-Tarts in the US also contain synthetic food coloring, which are restricted in the
19:13 UK.
19:14 They're typically yellow 5, yellow 6, red 40.
19:18 Because of their link to hyperactivity and inattention in children.
19:21 Golly gee, I can't imagine why.
19:23 My brain is going all over the place.
19:26 Another thing to note is that the Pop-Tarts Joe sent me are technically contraband items.
19:29 If you're working with the police or the government and you watch this, please do not
19:32 extradite Joe.
19:33 We need him for filming.
19:34 That's because the flour used in US Pop-Tarts is bleached.
19:37 Bleaching flour has been banned in the UK since the 1990s over concerns about potential
19:41 health effects.
19:42 The answer just seems unnecessary to me, especially for something that's going to be toasted
19:44 and darkening color anyway.
19:46 You guys just love putting chemicals in your food and seem to seize any opportunity you
19:49 can to do it.
19:50 Yeah, don't arrest me, but he did ask me to send it.
19:53 So I will flip on the UK team in a second.
19:56 FBI, if you're watching, I will wear a wire.
19:58 It was all Harry's idea.
20:00 I will help you take him down.
20:02 What?
20:03 I'm watching the current season of Love Island.
20:08 UK.
20:09 Some like, are you joking?
20:10 Are you joking?
20:11 You're having a laugh.
20:12 Are you having a laugh?
20:14 This is journalism, baby.
20:16 This is why we went to journalism school.
20:17 I didn't go to journalism school, so I have an excuse.