Alternative Baking Company makes giant vegan cookies. I was prepared to like them because my friend who own a health food store told me to check them out. I admit they taste delicious. However, these cookies are FULL of sugar. One cookie—two servings—has 24-38 grams of sugar; that’s as much as 8.5 teaspoons of sugar per cookie! I like that they use unrefined cane sugar, but that’s still a lot of sugar! Also, not every ingredient they use is organic, and their ingredient lists are long. I call these cookies Sneaky Stuff because the packaging promotes vegan diets as having a profoundly positive impact on your health. I don’t think eating a cookie with that much sugar and unbleached wheat flour is good for you. If you still want to try them, plan to share the cookie, and perhaps choose the Peanut Butter or Oatmeal to slow down the sugar rush!
Back to Nature makes several types of cookies, and I was surprised that none of their ingredients are organic. This means that their cookies contain pesticides, GMOs, and who knows what else. One small pouch has 8 grams of sugar, but I give them some points for the fact that they use honey and brown rice syrup rather than more refined sweeteners.
Glutino is Sneaky Stuff, with sugar as the first ingredient, plus rice flour, soy lecithin, and natural flavors.
Goodie Girl Cookies list cane sugar as the first ingredient. These cookies also contain rice flour, sunflower oil, soy lecithin, and natural flavors. At 11 grams of sugar per serving (two cookies), these are among the sweetest we reviewed.
Horizon Cinnamon Grahams get points for being organic. But because they contain soy lecithin, a widely used and controversial additive, I would choose Annie’s Cinnamon Grahams instead.
Lenny & Larry’s cookies are ubiquitous in New York City delis and bodegas. One thing to know is that if you eat the whole cookie it’s considered two servings, and that packs 24 grams of sugar. These have a protein blend that’s kind of weird (pea protein and rice protein), natural flavor, and guar gum. Overall these are pretty processed, not organic, and therefore Sneaky Stuff.
I have to call Mavericks cookies Sneaky because at the end of the day these cookies are made of white flour and sugar (plus “natural flavors”) and nothing is organic—yet these are marketed as a health food cookie for some reason.
Newman-O’s are a hit with my grandsons, and I’ve been a fan of the company (and Paul Newman himself) for a long time. But they’re basically Oreos made with processed organic ingredients like white flour, refined white sugar, and palm and sunflower oils. They’re better than Nabisco’s Oreos, but not much.
Trader Joe’s makes tons of different cookies, and some of them are better than others. As a whole, we have to call TJ’s cookies sneaky. Many of them contain white sugar (as opposed to cane sugar), and in some cases it’s the first ingredient. TJ’s cookies aren’t organic, and all are made with white flour and contain natural flavors. Trader Joe’s cookies also tend to be very sweet, with upwards of 10 grams of sugar per serving. Trader Joe’s gluten-free cookies all contain rice flour. The very worst Trader’s Cookies might be their little packs of mini chocolate chip cookies, which pack a whopping 23 grams of sugar in each pouch. The best Trader Joe’s cookies are the Belgian Butter Waffle Cookies, which, while not organic, have a very simple ingredient list: sugar, flour, egg, butter.
1 comment
Amy
Thank you for all of your suggestions.
I am trying to rebuild my go to foods with healthier options instead of cutting things out completely. Cookies are without doubt my biggest downfall and I always feel like crap after eating them. I think I’m addicted to junk food and I want to do a complete reset. Do you think opting for healthier versions will silence the junk food noises?