Thursday, November 27, 2008

What do Danish Girl Guides Sell?

Denmark being trans-fat free and all.

Somehow that entire country has found the means to make their cookies and danishes (are they called danishes in Denmark too?) trans-fat free.

Yet despite an entire country figuring out how to make trans-fat free foods taste good, Dare Cookies, the manufacturers of Canadian Girl Guide cookies still haven't been able to figure it out.

This week Girl Guides of Canada issued a press release touting the fact that after years of being aware that their cookies contained truly unacceptable amounts of trans-fat (ok, it didn't really say that part, I did) that they've figured out how to reduce the amount.

Of course if you eat two cookies you'll still be consuming 0.1grams of trans fat.

Doesn't sound like much does it?

According to the very nice lady I spoke with at the Girl Guide Cookies hotline (such a thing does indeed exist), there are twenty cookies per box and therefore 1 gram of trans fat per box.

According to the press kit that was sent to me, 5 million boxes of Girl Guide cookies are sold annually in Canada.

Therefore Girl Guide cookies annually contribute 5,000 kilograms (11,000 pounds) of trans-fat to the Canadian diet.

Um....thank you?

So while it's certainly a good thing that Girl Guides have reduced the trans-fat levels in their cookies I'm still not buying them. If Voortman's entire cookie line can be trans-fat free, if the entire country of Denmark can be trans-fat free, surely so too can be Girl Guide Cookies.

Until they're trans-fat free, I'm Girl Guide cookie free.

[Hat tip to blog reader and fellow public critic of Girl Guide cookies Peter]