treat: n. an event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure.

Same serving size, same calories
as traditional Oreos, but are you eating
enough to justify paying 2x for some
organic ingredients (I hope not).

A nameless blogger raved about the fact that food giants, such as Nabisco/Kraft, are recognizing the value of organic foods and making foods, such as Oreos, from organic ingredients for twice the price and half the taste.  With all due respect, is she nuts?  If I am eating an Oreo, it better taste every bit like a fat-laden, bad-for-me piece of heaven that makes me stop what I am doing to relish my moment of cookie and make gluttonous noises that border on the obscene.

So on a healthy lifestyle blog, are healthy changes by food manufacturers really being disparaged?  Yes, and here is the logic.  Oreos will never be good for you, but if eaten on occasion, according to their serving size and as a part of a healthy diet, they are not going to cause your waist-line to expand or clog your arteries.  But with a pack of Oreos in your pantry large enough to feed a starving nation, who eats Oreos according to their serving size?  

With 12 cookies per package,
this is a great way for a family of
four to each get a treat
without over-indulging. 

Much like the '90's Snackwell Cookie craze that packed on a thousand inches to the consuming public's collective mid-section with the words "fat free," people equate "organic" with "healthy" and eat their weight in cookies out of  the misconception that with one word, Oreos now sit on My Plate with the whole grains and vegetables.  In both scenarios, the problem is not the nutrition of the cookie but the portion size.  

The modern-day Oreo was developed in 1952.  Yet the Oreo and every other cookie did not become the target of health crazes until the 1990's, which is approximately when portions sizes started to balloon....as did the number of obese people in this nation.  Thus it does not appear that the cookie is the problem but the consumer.  So how do you get your fix of Oreos or any other food that beckon to you in voice that cannot be denied?

The answer is not to reduce just your portion size, as the one-pound bag in the pantry will keep calling until they are gone.  Instead, reduce the size of the entire package, and buy only what you or your family should eat in one serving to satisfy your craving, and then enjoy every bite of that chocolate sandwich treat without an ounce of guilt because you cannot over-indulge when you only have one serving*, and one serving even every month will not contain enough of any ingredient to merit it needing to be organic or even remotely healthy.

One person, 4 cookies, 160 calories

*Ah, the fine print!  This does mean that those three Oreos are literally a “treat,” as defined by dictionary.com, as even one serving of Oreos everyday will quickly add up, especially if it is a part of an unhealthy diet.