Girl Scout cookies are a once-a-year treat that many people look forward to, both because everyone has their favorite cookie and because sales support local girl scouts. Most of the cookies are staples in the line-up and have been around for years – Thin Mints, Trefoils and Samoas, just to name a few – but other cookies have come and gone over the years as trends and tastes change. This year’s line-up includes a new cookie: Mango Cremes with Nutrifusion. The cookies will have vanilla and coconut cookies sandwiching a mango-flavored creme filling. The name sounds like a mouthful and that is because Nutrifusion is the name of a vitamin additive that will give the cookies – according to the Girl Scouts’ material on them – “all the nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and strawberries.”
The cookie flavor itself sounds very tasty, but marketing the cookies as “a delicious new way to get your vitamins” seems like a questionable marketing angle for a cookie. One serving of Mango Creme cookies is three cookies. That one serving includes 15% RDI of Vitamin B1 and 5% RDI of Vitamins A, C, D, E, and B6. It also includes 8 grams of fat, including 20% of your daily recommended saturated fat intake – which is pretty much on-par with the rest of the most popular Girl Scout Cookies (Trefoils, Do-Si-Dos, Savannah Smiles and Thank U Berry Munch cookies all have slightly less). This more or less means that you could eat a piece of fruit, and count those nutrients towards any cookie you might want to eat.
Clearly, the Girl Scout cookie machine is hoping that this health boost will boost sales and only time will tell if nutrients – or simply the promise of a tasty mango and coconut cookie – will prove to be popular with cookie fans this year. Personally, I think that the new flavor would have been enough on its own, since coconut and mango together will always get me to try something at least once.
Joanne
January 15, 2013OMG it’s a cookie!!!! It’s not meant to be anything but a cookie. Why do people like you always try to pick on girl scout cookies. Give me a break.
Do you think your home made cookies don’t have calories and fat in them?
Quit being mean to the girl scouts and trying to get people to not buy from them.
Natalia
January 16, 2013Joanne:
Why do people like you always assume the blogger has an agenda against Girl Scouts? Why do people like you act mortally offended when the blogger reviews a product and question the brand’s marketing claims like she would for any other product? Why do people like you feel the need to use such an offensive term like “people like you”? Give us a break.
Jessica
January 17, 2013Eek, I don’t see what the problem was… x
Vanessa
February 8, 2013Anyone have trouble ordering these newbies this year?? They were advertised in the pamphlet, but when I went to check off that I wanted to purchase one box, there was no column for it!!!!
Christina
February 24, 2014It seems as though this blogger was disappointed in their own consumer choices but might still be a supporter of the organization. I will miss this cookie sincerely! It was the first of its kind to bring a flavor that seems to truly support the “melting pot” American ideal. Pretty sad that it’s gone. And here’s a hint to those trying to those trying to get vitamins…take vitamins and eat healthy. Even the three year old children I meet in preschool already know the difference between a fruit and a cookie.