Dr Bob the Health Builder

Dr Bob the Health Builder

Weekly E-Zine for Wealthy Healthy Wise

Vignettes to make Life Better and More Prosperous

This is a notice for all Girl Scout’s, their parents, family members, and community leaders to call on the national Girl Scout organization to clean up “their act.” The Girl Scouts have long been associated with developing integrity and honesty among young girls all over the world, but their campaign to sell cookies is anything but honesty and/or integrity.

Trans fatty acids have been clearly associated with the development of heart disease, cancers, diabetes and Alzheimer's.

The term “Trans Fat 0g” on the cookie labels are dishonest because hydrogenated oils are trans fatty acids.

The FDA labeling guidelines allow food manufacturers to list the amounts of trans fat with less than 0.5 gram (1/2 g)(per serving) as 0 (zero) on the Nutrition labels. Just because the FDA legally allows corporations to list “0 grams trans fat” does not mean that people with integrity should follow the FDA guidelines. It is deceptive and dishonest. The FDA is a government agency that protects corporate interests and income not the health of the public.

How much trans fat does a person eat over a lifetime of eating Girl Scout cookies? If a person buys one box of Girl Scout cookies I think it is safe to assume they are going to eat more than two cookies, hence they will be over .5 grams.

We also know that obesity is caused by eating worthless carbohydrates from unhealthy grains and high fructose corn syrup (sugar substitute) which is cheaper and unhealthier than sugar.

The long and short of Girl Scout cookies is that they are not healthy but the pretense is made they are ‘ok’ to collect money from unsuspecting people who want to help a good organization.

It is possible to manufacture baked goods without trans fat or hydrogenated oils.

Check out Paul Newman’s cookies which do not contain hydrogenated oils and they are organic.

http://www.newmansownorganics.com/food_newman-os.html# .

Asking little girls to sell unhealthy toxic food to the public is teaching a poor example to our youth. In our modern age, our obesity epidemic is skyrocketing, and children are so overweight it is predicted they will die before their parents do. All of this is due to over consumption of high carbohydrate and trans fatty acid junk foods like cookies.

The Girl Scouts are in theory committed to teaching girls leadership, contributions to humanity, values and social consciousness but it appears the Girl Scout organization is sending mixed messages when you ask them to be junk food peddlers. I would suggest the Girl Scouts take leadership on our obesity and diabetes epidemic and sell health-inducing products, instead of their present cookies.

I am sure the values of the people that started the cookies were noble and they would be very upset, if they saw how there ideas have gone astray. More importantly, from a monetary point of view, is these kids and their parents work their fingers to the bone selling these cookies at Wal-Mart and other business’s on Saturdays, pester all the their friends, and drive their relatives nuts until they purchase these unhealthy cookies and then to find out that they make about 10 cents per box – 90 cents out of every dollar goes to corporate greed.

The vast majority of the total revenue and gross or net profits of these sales, are siphoned off by the contract manufacturers, packaging companies, and the national organization running Girl Scouts.

This is a prime example of flat out lies, under the guise of wholesomeness, happy or healthy treats; this is clearly a gross violation of child labor laws!

I would suggest that if you want to support your local Girl Scouts that you not buy the cookies (and tell them why), but give them a donation with the stipulation that the money is to stay in your local community.

Dr Bob the Health Builder