Girl Scout cookie time is coming, and young sellers will be hawking a new treat this year, billed as heartily healthier than other choices. Also with Samoas, Thin Mints, Tagalogs, and Peanut Butter Patties, the Girl Scout cookie list will include Mango Cremes.
These fruity cookies include a mango- and vanilla-flavored filling, which is touted as containing a health boost with “all the nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and strawberries."
The dietary dynamo in the Girl Scouts’ new Mango Creme cookie is supposed to come from something called NutriFusion, added by the scouting organization’s official cookie maker, ABC Bakers.
What is NutriFusion, anyway?
Apparently, NutriFusion adds a host of healthy all-natural ingredients, as the manufacturer claims. The powdered product is made from freeze-dried fruits and vegetables.
Web cynics have crunched nutritional numbers and found the Mango Creme cookie’s apparent health food claims to crumble a bit. Estimates vary widely: a three-cookie serving may include two to 15 percent of the snacker’s recommended daily intake of several key vitamins.
Perhaps in response to such barbs, NutriFusion tossed out a cookie defense, pointing out that the Girl Scouts’ Mango Cremes ought not to be a substitute for actual daily healthy servings of fruits and vegetables.
"People aren't going to stop eating cookies,” NutriFusion president William Grand told reporters January 15, “but because of the processing done by the food industry we can actually put some of the nutrition back in and provide a healthier alternative to the consumer.”
Hold those healthy eating merit badges, nutritionists.
Three Mango Creme cookies contain 180 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrates (including 11 grams of sugar), and eight grams of fat, according to product labeling. That’s pretty close to most of the other Girl Scout cookies.
Does that ring a bell?
Holy shiitake mushrooms. Apparently, those are included in Mango Creme’s NutriFusion too.
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