Yea, that's right. I hate the fucking Girlscouts and their fucking cookies they push on the unsuspecting public this time of year - every year. Maybe that's a little strong and broad. My over-reaction (I admit it) may be slightly due to my finding out about a year ago that I have diabetes. I now realize that everything has corn syrup in it and it is effectively killing us all, and it's subsidized by The Feds of course.

Walking by the goodie table at work (why does it have to be right in my pathway to the bathroom - diabetics have to pee a lot) I am accosted by the site of neatly packaged rows of these delicious and evil cookies. I've resisted so far. Having the threat of blindness, amputation, and/or death helps you to resist things, but everyone else seems to gobble recklessly without remorse. Guilt of paying too much money for a product that's obviously bad for you is countered by the false reasoning that you're helping a good cause. Do they not know that each bite is a stepping stone to hell and damnation? I'm sure the scouts are gleefully aware of the consequences of the chocolate and sugar they are shoveling into the mouths of their all-too-willing victims as dollar signs replace their irises--cha-ching.

I remember my pre-diabetes, pre-awareness love affair with the cookie that was Girlscout-sold. The macaroons are delicious. There was a new lemon one that came out a few years before my diagnosis that was covered in delicate powdered sugar that melted in your mouth sweetly just before the tart lemony goodness crunch-exploded in your mouth. Yea, they were good--almost too good.

Now I'm learning to live with and even like sugar free cookies. They're still bad for you but not nearly as much. Before Diabetes smacked me upside the head, I hated sugar-free products. Diet soda was anathema to me and sugar free desserts made me screw up my mouth in disgust. Now I barely know the difference. I eat sugar free desserts like cookies (in moderation) without a second thought. I can hardly tell the difference from the real thing. How could I? I no longer am allowed to taste the real thing for comparison.

So things could be worse, but why can't there be more sugar-free choices. The grocery store has a few shelves of lite cookies and candies, but nothing compared to the aisles of delectables catering to the sweet tooth of the sugar-enabled. Not only cookies, but donuts, cakes, aisles of sugar coated cereal and pop-tarts. Bags of pure sugar itself, in several brands of brown, cane, powdered, or cubed. In contrast I've got the blue boxes, the pink stuff, and sometimes the crystal-like stuff in a box and a few food items here and there.

Why can't I have more choices? Where's my sugar-free pumpkin pie, my sugar free chocolate cake and donuts? Is food tech just not there to make these things possible? I find it hard to believe there's not a market for this stuff. The explanation has to be conspiracy and I'm looking squarely into your cute little mug, miss Girlscout thang standing all innocent-like at my front door.

hb

[update] There's a new girl scout cookie that's sugar free. They're blue for some reason though. What's going on here?