Looks Like We Picked the Wrong Week to Join the Girl Scouts

This article is from the archive of our partner .

Girl Scout cookie-selling season is upon us, but this year those grinning children in insignia-bedecked vests are serving up their caramelized confections and mint-chocolate morsels with a side of controversy.

In Chicago, where ordering just wound down, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Girl Scouts' three most popular cookies--Samoas, Tagalongs, and Thin Mints--contained "artery-clogging" partially hydrogenated oils despite boasting of having "0 grams trans fat," which the Food and Drug Administration permits because the amount of trans fat per serving is below 0.5 grams. The issue, as many of us know, is that once you eat one Samoa (serving size: two cookies), it's hard to stop. The Tribune explains that a person who eats eight Samoas "could be taking in nearly 2 grams of trans fats--a substance the National Academy of Science says cannot be safely consumed in any amount."

Then we learned from the Wall Street Journal that the recession has not spared the Girl Scouts. To slash costs and boost profits, a handful of Girl Scout councils are trimming their cookie roster to their six most popular varieties, dropping more obscure options like Thank U Berry Munch and Dulce de Leche (which--yes, really--was apparently aimed at Spanish speakers, to promote "diversity"). The Girl Scouts are running seminars and "cookie colleges" to teach girls why the "Super Six" pilot program makes business sense and how to make an effective sales pitch.

There's a lot here to chew on, so let's take reaction to these two developments one by one:

TRANS FATS

Eliminate Trans Fats Now! demands Sarah Parsons at Change.org. In an article entitled "Heart Disease: Girl Scout Cookies' Secret Ingredient," she explains that trans fats are linked to heart disease and diabetes:

The Girl Scouts claim that the organization strives to "build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place." Let's tell the Girl Scouts that taking heart unhealthy ingredients out of their cookies is one way they could "make the world a better place."

Girl Scouts Aren't Only Ones, The Week points out, in a guide to trans-fat labeling: "Chips Ahoy, Nilla Wafers, and Nutter Butters, for example, also contain some partially hydrogenated oils but claim to have zero trans fats."

Enjoy Our Cookies in Moderation, advises Girl Scouts spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins, as quoted by the Tribune: "We are always looking for ways to make healthier cookies that still appeal to our audience ... but we do know that our girls are selling a beloved American treat that is to be enjoyed in moderation." Tompkins did not specify the amount of trans fat in Samoas, Tagalongs, or Thin Mints. Then again, they are cookies.

COOKIE DOWNSIZING

This Isn't a 'Confectionery Catastrophe', cautions Vanity Fair's Juli Weiner: "The alterations to the snack roster are unlikely to upset a majority of customers, as scouts are still sweet on staples such as Thin Mints, Trefoils, and Tagalongs."

Are They Really Retiring Flops? wonders Yahoo's Mike Krumbholtz. To his surprise, he finds that some of the most searched-for Girl Scout cookies on the web are varieties on the chopping block like Shout Outs and Dulce de Leche.

Girl Scout Cookies Are Like the Economy, reasons Gawker's Hamilton Nolan: "It was working just fine. Then someone got the bright idea to hugely expand it. Then it collapsed. Soon, there will be just six kinds of Girl Scout cookies left ... Can you get by with just six different kinds of hand-peddled cookie, America? You sicken me."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

About the Author

Uri Friedman is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers global affairs.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”