Girl Scout Cookie Delirium
Luckily I don't have a problem with eating too much of favorite foods... because if I did? Today would be particularly challenging. Why today? Because today is the day Girl Scout cookies get delivered. As we speak, girls dressed in olive green are knocking on doors across America holding everyone's favorite Girl Scout cookies in their hot little hands.
Which ones are you looking forward to? It's a very subjective thing. While my husband is a Thin Mint kind of guy, my youngest daughter is a Tagalong. I'm all about the "All Abouts" while my oldest daughter enjoys all of the above.
Here's the news that Girl Scouts is real excited about (drum roll please)... all of the cookies this year are "trans fat free". Well, technically they may have .4 grams of trans fat or less per serving but they get to call themselves trans fat free according to the FDA guidelines. It's a step in the right direction certainly.
Just in case you wondered how the rest of the country feels about Girl Scout Cookies, Thin Mints are one of their biggest sellers with 25% of the sales, then comes the rich Samoas (19%) and then Tagalongs (13%).
The Lowest Calorie Cookies:
Which ones have the lowest caloric bang for your three bucks?
#1 Per ounce, the lowest calorie cookie is the Do-Si-Dos with 110 calories (2 sandwich cookies) and 5 grams fat, 1.5 grams saturated fat per 27 grams or roughly one ounce.
#2 The Sugar Free cookie is tied for second lowest with 130 calories (4 cookies) and 8 grams fat, 4.5 grams saturated fat per 30 grams or roughly one ounce.
#3 All Abouts have 130 calories (2 large cookies) and 6 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat per 27 grams or roughly one ounce.
All the rest of the cookies have 150 calories per 1-ounce serving, yes... even the extra rich Samoas. But within this happy pool of 150-calorie cookies, the lowest in fat and saturated fat is the Cafe Cookies with each serving (32 grams or 1-ounce) containing 6 grams of fat and 2 grams of saturated fat. Which is the highest in fat and saturated fat? (You ask with hesitation and fear?) It's the Tagalongs with 10 grams of fat and 4 grams of saturated fat. The first ingredient is roasted peanuts, which explains that.
So, to review...
Girl Scouts of the USA have announced, "Their cookies are now zero trans fat per serving with the same great taste that has made them one of America's favorite treats." I for one can't wait to taste them myself this year just to make sure they still taste great!
~~Elaine
Related Topics: Top 10 Trans Fat Foods, 100 Calorie Snacks
Technorati Tags: girlscouts, gsusa, girlscoutcookies, cookies, thinmints, samoas, tagalongs, transfats
Which ones are you looking forward to? It's a very subjective thing. While my husband is a Thin Mint kind of guy, my youngest daughter is a Tagalong. I'm all about the "All Abouts" while my oldest daughter enjoys all of the above.
Here's the news that Girl Scouts is real excited about (drum roll please)... all of the cookies this year are "trans fat free". Well, technically they may have .4 grams of trans fat or less per serving but they get to call themselves trans fat free according to the FDA guidelines. It's a step in the right direction certainly.
Just in case you wondered how the rest of the country feels about Girl Scout Cookies, Thin Mints are one of their biggest sellers with 25% of the sales, then comes the rich Samoas (19%) and then Tagalongs (13%).
The Lowest Calorie Cookies:
Which ones have the lowest caloric bang for your three bucks?
#1 Per ounce, the lowest calorie cookie is the Do-Si-Dos with 110 calories (2 sandwich cookies) and 5 grams fat, 1.5 grams saturated fat per 27 grams or roughly one ounce.
#2 The Sugar Free cookie is tied for second lowest with 130 calories (4 cookies) and 8 grams fat, 4.5 grams saturated fat per 30 grams or roughly one ounce.
#3 All Abouts have 130 calories (2 large cookies) and 6 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat per 27 grams or roughly one ounce.
All the rest of the cookies have 150 calories per 1-ounce serving, yes... even the extra rich Samoas. But within this happy pool of 150-calorie cookies, the lowest in fat and saturated fat is the Cafe Cookies with each serving (32 grams or 1-ounce) containing 6 grams of fat and 2 grams of saturated fat. Which is the highest in fat and saturated fat? (You ask with hesitation and fear?) It's the Tagalongs with 10 grams of fat and 4 grams of saturated fat. The first ingredient is roasted peanuts, which explains that.
So, to review...
Girl Scouts of the USA have announced, "Their cookies are now zero trans fat per serving with the same great taste that has made them one of America's favorite treats." I for one can't wait to taste them myself this year just to make sure they still taste great!
~~Elaine
Related Topics: Top 10 Trans Fat Foods, 100 Calorie Snacks
Technorati Tags: girlscouts, gsusa, girlscoutcookies, cookies, thinmints, samoas, tagalongs, transfats
40 Comments:
I have been throwing up my food intentionally and it seems to be working but my body feels like it is shuting down. What should I do?
Pleas help me! italy_blue_angel@yahoo.com
Dear Tara,
Please visit our Eating Disorders Support Group board to post for help.
And it's very important that you see your doctor and tell him/her what's been going on.
Just a quick comment. I moved my girl scout rom Maine to Missouri and I have noticed two things. 1) The cookies are sold and delivered at different times of the year and 2) We have different names for the cookies.
As a girl scout I remember selling Do-Si-Dos and Tagaolngs and Samoas, but this year there were none of those names. As for Cafe cookies, I had never heard of them until this year when a neighbor said that's what she ordered. After looking at the order form and making sure there were no cookies called Cafe cookies, I figures out that she was talking about Shortbreads. This has been a confusing and enlightening year in the area of girlscout cookies.
Not that this really has anything to do with anything, I just wanted to put my observations out there.
There are two companies that make Girl Scout cookies, ABC and Little Brownie Bakers. They make essentially the same cookies, but sell them under different names. Sometimes they may have distinctly different cookies, which might be the case with the Cafe cookies.
The individual Girl Scout councils have the discretion to choose whichever baker they want to use.
folks, they really are just Girl Scout cookies...have one and enjoy it, I have been eating those thin mints since before the words "trans fats" existed...really, we are way too conscious of this nonsense....
I purchased a box of Shortbread and a box of Cafe cookies from the same company and they are slightly different. The Cafe has a cinnamon flavor.
I helped my niece sell cookies in Missouri - where I've lived my whole life. She sold all the cookies mentioned above as well as Cafe Cookies and the Shortbread ones. Cafe Cookies came out last year. I'm not sure what part of Missouri your from but I'm about an hour from St. Louis and she's always sold the same cookies except that occassionally there are some new ones added.
our society is really sad b/c we cant even eat a girl scout cookie without having to think of "trans fat" 10 years ago noone even knew about that and we wonder why our children and teenagers have eating disorders...shame on people who write articles like that...very very sad
Here's the deal .... Trefoils and Shortbread are the same cookies just with different names. Cafe Cookies are something else entirely. Most of the cookies they sell are the same, but go by different names. HOWEVER: Different regions sell additional "special" cookies. For instance, my friend (a troop leader) who lives in Iowa sells the Little Brownies. Another person I know who is from Kansas sells the Lemonades. Neither of them carry the other cookie. Let me add, Lemonades are wonderful and everyone should carry them!! LOL
I am a G.S. leader from California. We sold the lemon cookies under the name Lemon Coolers, a reduced fat cookie that was awesome! We don't have them anymore :( and are getting a lot of complaints because of it. We did get the sugarfree Little brownies this year, however. They are good, but I would much rather see the lemon coolers come back.
The Cafe cookies are like eating a very crunchy snickerdoodle.
I've noticed a distinct difference between Little Brownie Bakers vs. ABC. I grew up with LBB (former girl scout!) and never knew ABC existed. Then I bought some cookies from my husband's niece in Maryland and they DID NOT taste like they should have (plus they had the weird names). I thought Girl Scout cookies were losing it (or that age had dulled my memories of their taste). Then I had some from LBB the next year and realized they are much, much better (with the proper names, whew). Who would've thunk it? :)
I spent 20 years as a GS leader. In assorted Councils. Each Council is required to sell a core group of cookies: the shortbread Trefoil, the Thin Mint, the peanut butter sandwich cookie, the Samoa/chocolate-cocoanut cookie, and the chocolate-covered peanut butter/Tagalog. Each Council may pick the baker and additional varieties. They also set the price. I know at one point I had a Girl Scout who routinely shipped her uncle in southern Louisiana a box of Thin Mints because the ones sold in his area were white instead of the dark he had grown up with.
To the people connecting trans fat worries to eating disorders: You are just plain wrong. Obesity is up there with smoking for preventable diseases. Secondly, study after study has shown that even small amounts of trans fat can significantly increase a persons risk of a cardiovascular event. Trans fat isn't something that makes you fat. It is an improperly shaped fat that doesn't naturally occur, and as such our body does not know what to do with it.
Being conscience of one's food intake is never a bad thing. Starving yourself to be thin is a very bad thing. Relating these two as linked is probably worse.
I applaud GSA for cutting out the trans fat. There are multiple bills in the works to get them cut out of foods in various areas of the country. Trans fat is used because it saves food manufacturers money. The pennies they save is not worth the cost of our health.
wordwiz said... I really loved the lemon coolers and would have bought ten boxes as they keep well!
I cannot imagine why the discontinued them.
I agree that being conscious of trans fats is very important and should not be compared to eating disorders. They are dangerous even in small quantities and are not a necessary part of your diet like sugar and fat are.
BUT, I disagree with applauding the "GSA for cutting out the trans fat" as they have not, in fact, cut them out entirely. I'm not even sure if they've cut them at all. What they have done is jumped on the label manipulation bandwagon and labeled their cookies as having 0 grams of trans fats when they know full well that they DO have trans fats. Even 1-2 grams of trans fats per day can be dangerous. Even if you only get .4 grams of trans fats in those 2 cookies you eat, how much are you getting the rest of the day? What if you decide to have four cookies throughout the day?
While they are teaching our children about leadership and community they could do much better in their lessons about nutrition.
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Girl Scount cookies list their #2 ingredient as "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" which clogs your arteries-exactly the same thing that trans fats do. Don't eat them! (Note: ingredients are listed in order of abundance. If this oil is listed as #2, it's a main ingredient!)
In Nevada the Girlscout cookies are called:
Thin Mints
Carmel Delight
Lemon Pastry
Peanut Butter Patties
Peanut Butter Sandwitch
Shortbread
Animal treasure
Just wanted to say that I bought some Do-Si-Dos today and they were good. I only bought 3 just to support the cause and I gave the rest away.
I wish someone would come back with the chocolate and vanilla sandwich cookies. I loved those. I also loved the 'white' thin mints!!
Oh for crying out loud, transfat, full of fat, Girl Scout cookies come out once a year and for a good cause, I know not one of you can say they haven't sat down and ate a whole box! They are just so darn good, I would worry about the fats if they were out year round!
girl scout cookies are girl scout cookies. enjoy them while u can because at the rate this country is going, they will be banned from selling them because of their ingredients. i personally, love that they still sell them. i applaud GSUSA for not allowing the children to go door to door. to me, that is more important then the ingredients.
Our cookies are 3.50 a box. Mints and tagalongs last about 1 day in our household.
Today is GS Sunday. I wasn't a GS as a kid but am an Asst. Leader now
because of my niece. Well, we celerbrated it by helping out with breakfast fellowship at church and our little but mighty troup servied
of course GS cookies. We are from MI and our cookies come from Little Brownie Bakery. The girls did a GREAT job and everyone at church was greatfull to them.
I miss lemon coolers. :( i'm in michigan. :(
PS: Kelloggs owns little brownie bakery. I know this because i used to work there in HR.
Interesting to see this article, considering the 2 boxes of Samoas (my favorite!) that I bought yesterday are labeled as having 5 grams of trans fat.
Anonymous who says her box has 5 grams of trans fats - look again please, you'll see the label says 5 grams of saturated fat and 0 trans fats. They are not the same thing.
I can say I've never sat down and eaten an entire box. I don't buy them because in truth, they really aren't that good. I can give a GS troop a donation if I want to support a good cause. I don't have to pollute my body with garbage food.
Hello, I am in Michigan. Here is a quick lesson. Michigan (for example) has 13 councils currently. Each council chooses to use either ABC or Little Brownie Bakers. The cookies come out at different times because it would be impossible for one baker to supply half the country with Cookies at the same time. I sold the ABC cookies this year, while my neighbors a few miles away sold Little Brownie. Last year both bakers had a Lemon Cookie, ABC had Lemon Pastry Cremes and Little Brownie had Lemon Coolers. Both VERY much loved. People from other councils would trade each other so they could have both kinds. Both were discontinued this year. With ABC replacing our Lemons with the new Lemonades...that are selling VERY WELL. However since I don't care for any lemon cookies...whatever.
And as for the Samoa/Carmal Delights.....THE BEST COOKIES EVER!!! Happy Cookie Season!
For whoever said "partially hydrogenated oils clog your arteries just like trans fats do"....partially hydro. oils ARE trans fats. And yes, look at the ingredient list for those. If you see them, that means there are trans fats- just less than .49 grams per serving. When there are only 2 cookies in a serving then be suspect. It is all about moderation people! If you eat a ton of cookies then go for a 45 min run. If you don't and then get fat, it is your own fault. None-the-less you should try to avoid trans fats anyway.
I have 3 boxes of Lemon coolers leftover from last year. We opened a box last month and they were fine. Wonder how much they would get on ebay? :)
BTW Here in Oregon we still go door to door especially if you have 2 GS daughters that want to sell 500 boxes. Considering that they sell themselves this is not as difficult as it sounds.
i bought a box of mint thins i live in califorina long beach and there so good my mom at all of them i only got two! good job girl scouts=)!
I am a Girl Scout leader in the US Virgin Islands and we have always sold ABC Girl Scout cookies. Yes, even here in the Caribbean all flavors sell well trans fat notwithstanding. Gettum while you can. Support a worthy cause.
Growing up I sold GS cookies with the "common sense" names: Shortbread, Peanut Butter Patties, Peanut Butter sandwiches, Thin Mints, Carmel Delites, etc. The first time I saw an order form with "Do-Si-Do" & "Samoas"... I was very confused. That's when I learned about the 2 different bakeries. They should just call the cookies by regular names-no matter which bakery they come from; then no matter what part of the country you live in you will know what cookie you want to buy.
As for trans fats; they are very damaging to your body & countries overseas are banning them. The US needs to buck up & do the same. All of foods should be made with natural ingredients & not synthetic chemicals. Organic (all natural) is the way all of food should be. And just maybe if all the food was made without the chemical junk, it wouldn't cost so much more to produce.
My two daughters sell door to door, only if a I'm with them. They both sold over a thousand boxes of cookies last year. They also were alowed to eat them. This years physicals found there in great shape. Not over weight at all. If your are concerned watch what they eat. It's what they eat the rest of the year that adds up.
Remember it for a good cause cookie sell suports the troop for the whole year. My girls have experience so much more with girl scouts than if the were not involed. I know for a fact that when you support girl scouts, they then go out and help their community.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the girls going door to door. When I grew up we did, where I live now (Las Vegas, NV) I don't guess they do, because noone has come to my door in three years. I try to catch them at the grocery store, but don't always get there in time, and when I do they are out of my favorite.... Peanut butter Sandwiches!!
Girl Scout cookies are a nice treat, they're sold once a year and they have been for an eternity. Girl Scouts is a wonderful program (I was involved with Girl Scouting as a child, a wonderful experience) and for those of you concerned about it contributing to obesity, OMG, grow up. Buy a box or two, share them with family or friends and know that you helped a local troop with their goals. It's such a worthwhile program and there is so much more to Scouting than cookie sales.
Wait...you have to try the white chocolate raspberry!!! I don't know which bakery sells it...but my husband bought them last year from the daughter of a woman at his office. I sent him back to get a case!
Forget the trans fat delimia..they are GS cookies! Being a GS Mom and starting weight watchers this year, I was impressed with the low point count.
Support your local troop...
And no I didn't eat the whole case! I sold them to friends at my office!
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