I recently used the coupon WhoNu cookies (like Oreos) published to buy a box of their cookies.  I was pleased to see the nutrition advertising on the front.  However, when I got them home and had two, I was appalled to see in tiny print that they use the three
worst fats (palm oil, coconut oil, and partially hydrogenated oil) in them.  This certainly negates any other claims of good nutrition.

I tossed the rest of the box and suggest that everyone avoid them as we should in respons to all false advertising.

Occam

Did they actually CLAIM to be ‘nutritious’? Unfortunately, there is no standard definition of ‘nutritious’, or ‘healthy’.....

When I buy packaged foods I always read the nutrition information first, checking the sodium content. Then I look at the ingredients. If I see the word “hydrogenated” I put it back on the shelf. This is one reason my wife and I have largely quit eating packaged foods. At first I was shocked at how many products subtly (and not-so-subtly) advertised as healthful have partially hydrogenated oils, massive amounts of sodium, and unrealistically small serving sizes to make you think the crap isn’t so bad for you. Now I skip the prepared foods and cook from scratch. My wife and I have cut 90 percent of the meat and all the dairy out of our diet. I have lost 25 pounds this year without sacrificing anything important (tequila).

You can make fantastic cookies with oatmeal, bananas, dates, walnuts, cinnamon and fruit spread. I just got a recipe for chocolate mints bars I’m going to try this weekend.

Occam. - 02 November 2011 10:24 AM

I recently used the coupon WhoNu cookies (like Oreos) published to buy a box of their cookies.  I was pleased to see the nutrition advertising on the front.  However, when I got them home and had two, I was appalled to see in tiny print that they use the three
worst fats (palm oil, coconut oil, and partially hydrogenated oil) in them.  This certainly negates any other claims of good nutrition.

I tossed the rest of the box and suggest that everyone avoid them as we should in respons to all false advertising.

Occam

The facts that you presented is is no way false advertising.  You simply failed to read what was on the box but don’t let that get you down.  At times we have all been guilty of that.

DarronS - 03 November 2011 06:41 AM

If I see the word “hydrogenated” I put it back on the shelf.

Partially hydrogenated is where the real damage lies. Fully hydrogenated, not so bad.

Don’t you love how the supermarkets like to “face” the maximally processed foods, pushing them to the edge of the shelf and advertising side forward?  I like to put them back with the nutrition panel forwards instead!    But I’m not that effective because I don’t spend much time in those isles anymore. 

Now I found an old fashioned market (not a supermarket) that hardly has any packaged foods, just basic single ingredient ones like rice in a vacuum pack, dried fruit in a box, dried beans in a box, etc.  They mostly have fresh produce and also some cheese, some pickled/brined foods, and then the dried foods, that’s all so simple!  Over 70% of the store is devoted to fresh produce and the whole place is refrigerated.  I have to go elsewhere for milk and meat.

I recently discovered cannellini beans, yum!  I add salt when soaking them.  I saw some at the Pompeii exhibit in the recovered artifacts, so they are old enough that your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother could recognize them. 

I saw Goya’s hot sauce, they put dyes in it, it looks Christmas red, instead of tomato sauce red.    Goya is good sometimes, but tsk tsk tsk on their hot sauce.

I wonder, how does one hydrogenate oil?

jump_in_the_pit - 03 November 2011 02:26 PM

I wonder, how does one hydrogenate oil?

It’s organic chemistry 101. Sometimes a catalyst is used (Ni). But in the presence of sufficient H, double bonds are replaced by single bonds.

CH2=CH2 + H2———> CH3-CH3   (NB, double replaced by single)
                      (Ni)

Good one Travler.    I didn’t know that oil was CH2=CH2 (double bonded).

jump_in_the_pit - 05 November 2011 01:00 AM

Good one Travler.    I didn’t know that oil was CH2=CH2 (double bonded).

Yeah, just saturate it with H and the doubles turn to singles and runny peanut butter (for example) becomes viscous enough to spread with a knife.

And we metabolize oils more easily than saturated fats by breaking the long chains at the double bonds (especially coordinated ones), but the partially hydrogenated ones are even more difficult to metabolize than straight animal lard so even more likely to end up causing more arterial plaque.

Quoting Deros:

You simply failed to read what was on the box

  Yeah, and it’s a real bother having to put my reading glasses on and take them off repeatedly while shopping. 

Occam

Yeah, but the real question is: Are the hydrogenated fats food or not?  I mean if one metabolizes them so badly, and it does not grow in (well, sorry to use the N word here, but it does apply) nature, then how can they be called food?

Stir my peanut butter?  Oh no, that would mean burning ten calories just before eating one-thousand!    Seriously though, after one gives up candy, the peanut butter really tastes like candy!  I had to give it up, so much fat and so little protein, the old timers really named it properly calling it “butter”.

Occam. - 05 November 2011 01:25 PM

... but the partially hydrogenated ones are even more difficult to metabolize than straight animal lard so even more likely to end up causing more arterial plaque.

Really?  You keep saying that.  I just guessed they mixed some normal oil with the hydrogenated oil and that’s what “partially hydrogenated” meant.  Nope, I guess its not a mix, its a different chemical.