Girl Scout Cookie Choices Healthier This Year

Since I am a PROUD Girl Scout Mom, and by default GS Cookie seller, I wanted to share this information with you all...

Jan. 18 (iVillage Total Health) - When the neighborhood Girl Scouts bring out their to cookies this year, there's something that will be missing from the Thin Mints - artery-clogging trans fats.
The annual Girl Scout cookie sales - a tradition across the country for decades - will offer healthier snack choices. According to Girl Scouts of the USA, this is the first year that all of the cookie brands sold will carry the "zero trans fat per serving" label.
The designation means that each serving of the treats has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat (or trans fatty acids) - the basis of many lards, spreads and solid cooking oils. Trans fats are produced when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil. This process - called hydrogenation - makes some foods, particularly baked goods, tastier and keeps them fresher longer on store shelves. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that Americans get 40 percent of their trans fat intake from baked goods.
Trans fats raise the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) blood levels in the body. LDLs are the bad cholesterol responsible for clogging arteries and causing strokes and heart attacks. Trans fats also reduce the level of good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) in the blood.
However, a 2006 study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health showed a link between trans fats and an increased risk of coronary artery disease and other serious conditions. Many fast food restaurant chains have voluntarily replaced trans fats with healthier unsaturated fats, such as olive, canola, soybean, corn or sunflower oils. Late last year, New York and several other cities across the country took measures to ban the use of trans fat in foods prepared in restaurants. The Harvard study also found that eating just 5 grams of trans fat a day could increases the risk of heart disease by 25 percent. Researchers concluded that eliminating trans fat from the American diet could prevent between 6 and 19 percent of heart attacks and related deaths each year.
Girl Scout officials said in a press release that they have worked with their bakers to reduce trans fats in their cookies. In 2005 and 2006 a limited number of the cookie varieties were manufactured with minimal trans fat. For 2007, all 12 varieties sold meet or exceed FDA guidelines requiring disclosure of the amount of trans fat per serving on nutrition facts labels of all packaged goods. The cookies all have less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, which meets the FDA standard to claim "zero trans fat per serving."
Girl Scouts chief executive officer Kathy Cloninger also reminded cookie lovers that eating snacks of any kind in moderation is still the healthiest choice. Although the cookies contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, consuming an entire box (which may represent seven or eight servings) will quickly boost trans fat intake levels.
Copyright 2007 iVillage Total Health.
Publish Date: January 18, 2007


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