Last week we got all excited when we read on Shape.com that the Girl Scouts were introducing their first whole grain cookie. Called Cranberry Citrus Crisps, the cookies have whole wheat flour as their first ingredient, and offer 9 grams of whole grain in every serving. (A serving is 34 grams, or four small cookies.) 

We checked out the new cookies online, and got even more excited. They’re cute, with an embossed grain design as shown here; they’re described on the Girl Scouts website as a “crispy cookie, made with whole grain, full of tangy cranberry bits and zesty citrus flavor… Made with real fruit, this new cookie has no high-fructose corn syrup, and no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners.” A glance at the Nutrition Facts Panel shows a serving of these new cookies has no saturated fat or trans fat, a couple grams of protein, and a gram of fiber. 

Okay, so it’s still a cookie. But that’s such an improvement on Samoas (with sugar as the first ingredient, and partially hydrogenated palm and/or cottonseed oil as the second) … Dulce de Leche with three different artificial colors … or Thin Mints with a hefty 5 grams of saturated fat per serving – my favorite from my own days as a Brownie Scout (that’s me below at age 8 with my Brownie Troop marching in the Memorial Day parade in my Massachusetts hometown).

All I could think was, “When can I give these new whole grain cookies a try?” There’s a cool Cookie Finder on the Girl Scouts website, that helps you figure out when those adorable girls will be sitting at a card table at your supermarket, just in case no one comes knocking at your door. Sales start February 8 in our region, and I was psyched.

But then I came down to earth, hard and fast. Turns out two different bakeries – ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers – are official providers of Girl Scout cookies. The new whole grain Cranberry Citrus Crisps are made by ABC Bakers, and they’re not available in New Hampshire. 

Robin Boyd, Coordinator of Product Sales and Marketing for the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serves NH and VT, explained to us that each Council picks which of the two bakeries to use. While both bakeries make the six best-selling cookies (Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos, Samoas, Trefoils, Savannah Smiles, and Tagalongs) they’re free to offer additional cookies, too. Robin was friendly and cheery, but unable to help me try those new whole grain cookies.

So here are my options, any and all of which I will probably pursue:

1) Sneak over the border. I’m only a mile from Maine, and the Girl Scouts of Maine have – lo and behold! – chosen ABC Bakers to service them. I hold my breath and click on the “Cookie Types and Ingredients” link and… yes! They’re carrying the whole grain Cranberry Citrus Crisp cookie. 

2) Make a donation to the Girl Scouts anyway. When those neighbor girls arrive at my doorstep with their oh-so-earnest sales pitch, I will give them $8 – the price of two boxes of cookies – but tell them to keep the cookies. I really do want to support the scouts, but I don’t really want the other cookies.

3) Head to the kitchen and make what I consider my dream Girl Scout cookie: a whole grain thin mint. Our friend Heidi Swanson, of 101 Cookbooks, has an awesome recipe for “Homemade and All-natural Thin Mints.” Heidi worked on this recipe for two years, to perfect a cookie made simply with “old-fashioned butter, cocoa, vanilla, sugar, chocolate, whole grain flour! and peppermint.”

What are your options, where you live? If they have the whole grain cookie, vote with your wallet and buy it. If they don’t, be ever so wistful and sad so they’ll know why they lost the sale. If enough of us ask for the whole grain cookie, we’ll make sure the Girl Scouts know that the world is full of whole grain lovers. So make your preferences know. And visit our Whole Grain Forum to tell us how you handled your cookie cravings. (Cynthia)