Tough cookies.You'll never get healthy by eating cookies. Not Archway ("the good food cookie"). Not Frookies ("the good for you cookie"). Not Health Valley ("good tasting... and healthy"). But this new generation of cookies won't do as much damage as its predecessors. Many have less fat and sugar (fat numbers are easy to get; companies treat sugar numbers like State Secrets). Some have more fiber. And a few actually supply decent amounts of the occasional vitamin or mineral. FRUIT BARS & COOKIES Best: Health Valley Fat-Free Fruit Center Worst: Pepperidge Farm Pepperidge Farm was founded in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin, who named the brand for a property her family owned in Connecticut (which itself was named for the pepperidge tree, Nyssa sylvatica). In 1961, the company was purchased by Campbell's. Strawberry Fruit If you're looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a fat-free cookie, start here...with Health Valley. Its Fruit Center cookies are filled with whole grain flours, brans, and fruits, many of them organic. They have a respectable 3 1/2 grams of fiber per one-ounce cookie--about as much as in two slices of whole wheat bread--and at least ten percent of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance (USRDA USRDA United States Recommended Daily Allowance ) for vitamin A vitamin A also called retinol Fat-soluble alcohol, most abundant in fatty fish and especially in fish-liver oils. It is not found in plants, but many vegetables and fruits contain beta-carotene (see (it's probably the added carrot powder). And, unlike Fig Newtons, they're sulfite-free. (Companies add sulfites to keep their fruit fillings from discoloring. Sulfites can cause life-threatening reactions in some people, mostly asthmatics.) Unfortunately, we found Health Valley's cookies too intensely sweet. The same went for all the other fat-free cookies, whether sweetened sweet·en v. sweet·ened, sweet·en·ing, sweet·ens v.tr. 1. To make sweet or sweeter by adding sugar, honey, saccharin, or another sweet substance. 2. To make more pleasant or agreeable. with fruit-juice concentrate (HEalth Valley, Frookies, Natures Warehouse, Heaven Scent) or sugar (Entenmann's, Weight Watchers). (Don't give fruit-juice concentrate too much credit. It's little more than sugar-water.) The only fruit-filled cookies our tasters liked were Archway Apple Filled and Date Filled Oatmeal and Frookies Fruitins. They may be worth the gram or two of fat. Pepperidge Farm Strawberry Fruit cookies are made with butter and have twice the fat of the average fruit cookie. OATMEAL Best: Health Valley Fat-Free Raisin raisin, in botany and cooking raisin, dried fruit of certain varieties of grapevines bearing grapes with a high content of sugar and solid flesh. Although the fruit is sometimes artificially dehydrated, it is usually sun-dried. Oatmeal Worst: Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal Raisin Health Valley's fat-free oatmeal cookies are made from whole wheat flour Noun 1. whole wheat flour - flour made by grinding the entire wheat berry including the bran; (`whole meal flour' is British usage) graham flour, whole meal flour, graham wheat flour - flour prepared from wheat Britain, Great Britain, U.K. , rolled oats oats, cereal plants of the genus Avena of the family Gramineae (grass family). Most species are annuals of moist temperate regions. The early history of oats is obscure, but domestication is considered to be recent compared to that of the other , and a slew of other grains and brans. They'll give you some fiber and vitamin A. No such luck with Entenmann's fat-free oatmeal cookies. The first two ingredients are sugar and white flour. If it's taste you want, try Archway Oatmeal. And if it's fat, try Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal Raisin. Three of them will sock you with eight grams of fat, some of it highly saturated. CHOCOLATE SANDWICH A Chocolate sandwich is a sandwich with a chocolate filling. Sliced chocolate wafers are a popular option - some people use cheese graters to make making chocolate sandwiches more convenient. Best: None Worst: Oreo Big Stuf You're not going to find many whole grains or nutrients in this category. Two Oreos have only four grams of fat, but two of the four are saturated. That's about ten percent of your saturated-fat allowance for a whole day. Oreo Big Stufs have more than twice as much fat as regular Oreos. CHOCOLATE CHIP Chocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape (similar to a Hershey's Kiss). They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter. Honorable Mention: Entenmann's Fat Free Oatmeal Chocolatey Chip Worst: Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chunk Pecan pecan: see hickory. pecan Nut and tree (Carya illinoinensis) of the walnut family, native to temperate North America. Occasionally reaching a height of about 160 ft (50 m), the tree has deeply furrowed bark and feather-shaped leaves. Entenmann's may have chocolate chips, but don't expect them to taste like the chocolate chip cookies you dream about. The lowest-fat, good-tasting chocolate chip cookies were from Frookies. Three of them (about an ouce) contain five grams of fat and 135 calories. That's not great, but you could do a lot worse: Two Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chunk Pecans have 12 grams of fat and 200 calories. PEANUT BUTTER Best: Health Valley Honey Jumbo Peanut Butter Worst: Grandma's Big Peanut Butter Most peanut butter cookies are too fatty to justify their itsy bit of protein. A Health Valley Jumbo Peanut Butter, though, has one-third the fat of the average peanut butter cookie. On the other side of the ledger are Grandma's Bit Peanut Butter cookies, with 15 grams of fat and 205 calories, and Girl Scout Tagalongs, with 12 grams of fat and 160 calories. PEPPERIDGE FARM Best: Wholesome Choice Carrot Walnut Worst: Lemon Nut Crunch Most of Pepperidge pepperidge: see black gum. Farm's 49 kinds of Milanos, Sausalitos, etc., defy categorization...unless we had a category for fatty cookies. Try the company's new Wholesome Choice line. It averages about three grams of fat and 22 percent of calories from fat. Just keep in mind that Pepperidge Farm has never seen a whole grain it liked. As for taste, we loved the Carrot Walnut, which supplies 20 percent of the USRDA for vitamin A. Worst honors go to the Lemon Nut Crunch. Three cookies (an ounce) contain 11 grams of fat. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion