A Kentucky bakery recalled one variety of Girl Scout cookie this week after customers complained of a "foul smell and taste," the Associated Press reports. The recall affects Lemon Chalet Cremes distributed in Maryland and two dozen other states.
The baker, Louisville-based Little Brownie Bakers, traced the problem to a breakdown of oils. They say:
No one has gotten sick and the company contends that the cookies, though "not up to our quality standards," are safe to eat.
Well isn't that special. Those oils that are breaking down, unfortunately, are trans fats. The nutritional label notwithstanding, food manufacturers are able to make their foods appear healthier on their packaging by manipulating the portion size.
Food blog Fork & Bottle explains:
Food manufacturers are allowed to list amounts of trans fat with less than 0.5 gram per serving as zero on the Nutrition Facts panel. As a result, consumers are seeing products that list zero gram transfat on the label, while the ingredient list will have "shortening" or "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" on it."
The serving size might be as small as two cookies, but let's be real: no one eats just two.
Anyway, the food blog makes suggestions on other ways to support the Girl Scouts besides buying cookies. The easiest thing is to make a donation and tell your scout to keep the cookies.
Personally, while I'm concerned about the trans fats and high fructose corn syrup, I'm even more annoyed that despite all this toxic crap the cookies still taste bad. If you're going to pollute your body at least you should get something enjoyable out of it.
