How Do the Cookies on the Cookie Diet Taste?
Cookie diets have swept through America, with several varieties gracing drug store shelves all over the nation. Formulated with special proprietary recipes and additive mixtures, diet cookies taste completely different than the usual Mrs. Field's mall offering. Because they cost so much and promise dramatic results, the L.A. Times taste tested several brands of diet cookies, coming up with a helpful range of opinions for consumers.
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History
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Ever since Dr. Sanford Siegal created the original Cookie Diet thirty years ago, his company has been formulating different varieties of bakery-inspired dietary supplements. A former obesity doctor, Siegal's core idea was to trigger weight loss with a diet of 800 calories a day, saying, "No one fails on 800 calories a day, believe me." Since opening a flagship store in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2009, Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet company now offers a full range of cookie flavors to his celebrity adherents. Of course, there are now a spate of competitors, with brands from as far away as Japan fighting for a piece of the American diet market.
Types
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Each competitor on the cookie diet market has a full range of cookie products and their own variety of cookie flavors. Dr. Siegal's eponymous brand offers oatmeal raisin, chocolate, blueberry, banana and coconut. Competitor Hollywood Cookie Diet has chocolate, lemon and oatmeal. A third brand, Smart for Life, produces "chocolate chip, piña colada, Boca banana, Maine blueberry, cinnamon oatmeal raisin, garden pizza," according to the L.A. Times. All measure anywhere from 20 to 40 grams in weight, with a cornucopia of nutritional additives such as amino acids, fiber and protein.
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Cookie Features
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The cookies vary in consistency from soft to cracker-like. The Japanese Soypal Diet cookie is dry, and L.A. Times cookie diet product reviewers favorably compared the product to Zwieback wafers. The Hollywood Cookie Diet was rated most like a conventional baked good with one taster saying, "This could pass for a regular cookie!" These diet cookies are very dense, containing lots of fiber in order to create a feeling of fullness; they're usually larger in size than a regular dessert cookie and might look more lumpy and grainy.
The Taste Test
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Out of all of the cookies, the L.A. Times panel gave the highest marks to the Hollywood Cookie diet products. Although one taster found the chocolate variety tasteless, others thought that the cookies were moist, chewy and satisfying to the palette. The least favorite of the bunch was the original Dr. Siegal cookie, with the Smart for Life product a close second. Most reviewers rated the non-chocolate flavors as nearly tasteless and the chocolate as passable.
The Bottom Line
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Cookie diet cookies aren't going to taste anything like a normal cookie. The purpose of these products is to fill the stomach. However, dieters have to consume these multi-textured cookies in large quantities for several meals per day. It's possible that a very driven dieter can keep up with the diet, but the body might rebel in favor more satisfying, tasty fare. Fad diets like the Cookie Diet are all right for quick weight loss but not for the long run.
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References
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- Photo Credit 2009 var resa / Creative Commons
