The pure evilness that is Little Debbie (daily basis, diet, overweight)

[eevee]

Little Debbie products(and Hostess too, but I'll concentrate mainly on LD) are evil! delicious, frosted, creme filled evil! no seriously, people wonder why kids are so overweight these days, well one reason may be they can buy 300-600 calorie cakes for $.35-$.50! I remember when I was a kid (way back when in the 90's), despite the fact my family was dirt poor, I always managed to scrounge up a couple of quarters to buy a couple of Zebra cakes (I was addicted to those things, the strawberry rolls too).

these things are the cheapest, most unhealthy food item sold in this country (candy bars have less calories than some of these snack cakes and often cost more)

look at the nutritional facts on these things; most have over 300 calories, many have over 30% of your daily saturated fat intake (and I'm not even going to guess how much trans fat these things have). honey buns are just pure sugar (well, actually pure HFCS, very little honey). a kid can go into a store w/ a dollar and come out w/ over 1,000 calories worth of mini cakes and eat over 100% of their daily fat intake! this is just as bad as soda (heck, even soda doesn't have that many calories compared to this stuff!)

I'm just ranting here since I see no way to solve this problem. when I was a kid, even if I didn't have a quarter, if I found one in the streets, it was off to the corner store to buy a zebra cake. every single Walgreens/CVS/corner store I've ever been into sells these. you can buy a box of them for less than $1.50 from many grocery stores.

my sister has been waging a losing battle w/ my niece about these snack cakes. my niece buys about 3 of them a day and sometimes hides boxes of them in her bedroom. it's becoming a major issue since diabetes runs in my family and my niece is showing signs of insulin resistance (she's 11)

I wish a study could be done to see just how many kids, esp young kids, are buying this junk on a daily/near daily basis. I'm sure the number would be quite high.

[appalachiangirl]

There are weight watcher desserts,which have less calories and are pretty tasty. Maybe your niece could have these instead.

[Laura707]

I also have a problem with the widespread use of partial hydrogenated oils.

Partial hydrogenation is an industrial process used to make a perfectly good oil, such as soybean oil, into a perfectly bad oil. The process is used to make an oil more solid; provide longer shelf-life in baked products; provide longer fry-life for cooking oils, and provide a certain kind of texture or "mouthfeel." The big problem is that partially hydrogenated oil is laden with lethal trans fat.

So WHY was the use of trans fats band, then it is still allowed up to a certain amount and not be placed on the lable, and these hydrogenated oils completely ignored? I had a nutritionist tell me back in the 80's to avoid anything that had the word "hydrogenated " as this was BAD! Bad! Bad! for you. They have known this that long but yet continue to allow the use of it.

Top nutritionists at Harvard have stated as follows:
[QUOTE]"By our most conservative estimate, replacement of partially hydrogenated fat in the U.S. diet with natural unhydrogenated vegetable oils would prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year, and epidemiologic evidence suggests this number is closer to 100,000 premature deaths annually."[/quote]

To me, they are allowing this to be used and sold to MAKE US SICK! The have created a problem so they can make money off of making us well again which is a joke.. They do not want us well because illness makes money!

They allow the making and selling of Little Debbie snack junk, keep the prices low so later they can sell us their expensive cures that only make us sicker so we have to buy even more medicines.

[southernnaturelover]

I used to eat these things when I was a kid too, we were also poor back then. I always liked the ones with the raisins on top, the apple flips, and the brownies. Now as an adult I never have the desire to eat them anymore, which is a good thing.

[nilssson]

Let he who is without cinnamon cast the first scone.
But I do agree that Little Debbie takes the cake and she's gone from batter to worse.

[GraniteStater]

The last time I bought a cinnamon roll from a vending machine it had NO trans fat. However, I am sure it had some artificial flavorings and preservatives.

[verynicebecky]

You are so right on the money OP. Just a few weeks ago I was looking to buy myself and my children (2) each a candy bar. I looked across the aisle and noted that a box of Nutty Bars would cost less, so guess who won out (sorry Snickers). Maybe with the rising cost of HFCS (discussed on the removing HFCS from soda thread) Little Debbie and the like will have to raise their prices, causing some ppl to look for a less expensive (and perhaps healthier) snack alternative.

Sin Tax anyone......?

[sgresident]

I love little debbie's! nutty bars are my favorite. Just like anything else, they are not that bad for you if you only have one.