There is no denying that Girl Scout Cookies are delicious but when you find out what’s actually in them, you might think twice about eating them ever again.

I used to be a Girl Scout and if I knew what I know now about food and nutrition, I would have boycotted selling them until the ingredients changed.

We all know cookies are cookies and they are a treat that isn’t meant to be “healthy.” But, the cookies I like to eat have basic ingredients – flour, sugar, butter or coconut oil, baking soda and eggs. If you’ve been to any grocery store lately, you’ll see that there are tons of options that are just that. So, why is it that the Girl Scouts get little girls to hawk these cookies year after year that are filled with artificial and questionable ingredients?

Just take a look at the ingredients, they speak for themselves!

Sugar made from GMO Sugar Beets

The sugar in Girl Scout Cookies doesn’t all come from sugar cane, but instead from genetically modified sugar beets. This type of sugar can contain glyphosate residues from the Roundup weed killer that is prevalently used on them. Glyphosate was deemed a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO), and is also linked to kidney disease, birth defects, and autism. If you think a little bit of herbicide residue in your cookie isn’t something to worry about, consider this, soon after Monsanto got approval to market GMO sugar beets for public consumption, they requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increase the limit of allowable glyphosate residues in sugar beet roots from 0.2 ppm to 10 ppm – that’s a 5000% increase! Given the prevalence of Roundup-Ready crops in America, just how much of this stuff are we really eating? Not to mention glyphosate pollution of our water, soil and air that is affecting us all.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

There are two versions of of Girl Scout Cookies made by 2 different bakers. Although the ingredients are nearly identical, one version of the Thin Mints cookie (and some other cookie varieties) is sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup. This sweetener can be contaminated with toxic mercury and has been shown to contribute to type II diabetes, especially in children.

Partially Hydrogenated Oils

The Girl Scouts use a sneaky FDA loophole to claim all of their cookies contain “0 Grams Trans Fat” per serving, while some of them (including Thin Mints made by Little Brownie Bakers) actually contain partially hydrogenated oil with artificial trans fat. They get away with this because the FDA allows any product is labeled “0 grams of Trans Fat” to contain up to 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving (which is only 4 Thin Mints). Yet, the Institute of Medicine says that no amount of trans fat safe to eat because trans fat is linked to thousands of cases of heart disease. Please note – The FDA is requiring all food manufactures to remove trans fats by 2018, but food companies can still petition the FDA for a special permit to continue using it.

Enriched White Flour

This type of flour has been stripped of natural nutrients so it has no redeeming qualities and is essentially dead food. So, they enrich it with synthetic vitamins (niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid) that are not naturally derived. These fake nutrients are engineered in a lab from such things as coal tar, ammonia, formaldehyde, GMO bacteria, and petroleum.

Artificial Flavors

The type of flavors used by the Girl Scouts is a top secret man-made concoction of chemicals. Not only do you not know what chemicals you are really eating when you eat artificial flavors, but they are linked to allergic reactions.

Class IV Caramel Color

There are 4 different types of caramel color used by the food industry, and Class IV caramel color is added to some Girl Scout cookies like Thin Mints. Class IV caramel color is made from ammonia and contains the byproduct 4-MEI, a known cancer risk.

And if Thin Mints are not your favorite Girl Scout Cookie, Samoas are even worse!

And if you like Tagalongs – here’s the deal with those:

Do we really need to buy these cookies to support the Girl Scouts?

When the Girl Scouts come knocking, consider a donation or volunteering for the Girl Scouts instead of buying these cookies. Please also consider signing this petition started by a little Girl Scout asking for organic and non-GMO cookies!

Voting with your dollars is not always popular or easy but surely sends the right message to these bakers that continue to use these controversial ingredients.

If you know someone who is selling or eating Girl Scout Cookies, please share this post with them. The more people that know the truth, the better!

Xo,

Vani