In Defense of Girl Scout Cookies

Who knew these time-honored traditional Lent-busters were so controversial?

Honestly...I never thought twice about this. Who wouldn't want to support the Girl Scouts? Cookie sales are the organization's most lucrative and well-known fundraiser, and in a time when philanthropy and non-profit community organizations are floundering, it's more important than ever to support the causes we need the most.

Bea is in her first year of Girl Scouts. Like her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother before her, she is learning the Law and Promise, earning badges and yes, selling cookies. Some things have changed since my Gram was a Depression-era Scout: the uniforms and levels have been changed to be more compatible with today's girls, camping and badges are secondary to leadership skill development (but are still an integral part of Scouting) and troops are no longer massive (my Junior troop once boasted 38 girls and one leader. Bea's troop is 11 girls and 3 leaders.)

Some things haven't changed, though. Scouts places an emphasis on honesty and self-reliance, the motto is still Be Prepared. The girls still salute with three fingers and end each meeting in a friendship circle, singing "Make New Friends." Some of my fondest memories involve my Brownie and Junior troops. I never went to Scout camp, but my First Aid badge came in handy the first summer at church camp, when I was called upon to hold a bandage in place while a friend ran to get a counselor after an unfortunate incident involving an Exact-o knife in the arts & crafts hut.

When Bea asked to become a Girl Scout, my heart leaped for joy. Not only would we have a fourth-generation Scout in our family, it meant an automatic hookup for the world's best treat: Girl Scout cookies! The Boy actually told me recently that when I was pregnant with Bea, the first thing he thought of when he saw the ultrasound and heard the tech's pronouncement of "a little girl" was Girl Scout Cookies.

My girl rolled 350 boxes this sale, and I did a turn as the Cookie Mom. Yes, we bought 22 boxes of cookies just for our family. The Boy and I put in separate orders. We don't share. He believes in immediate consumption, I believe in freezing them and making them last as long as possible. We have common ground (Tagalongs), and divergence (Thin Mints are my favorite, Samoas are entirely his province).

This was my first year as a Cookie Mom, and while the process has evolved from a large worksheet and manual EVERYTHING into Excel spreadsheets and an online tracking tool, it means that for the past 4 months or so, I have been running a business that yielded almost $5,000 in sales. Not bad for 11 first graders, eh?

The girls earned roughly %650 this year from cookie sales for their troop. With that money, our little first graders are going to plant flowers in the school garden, organize a clean-up for the fields and a neighborhood rec center, go to the children's museum, and have a day at the water park. They will also buy some of their Brownie supplies for next year and participate in an all-school bridging ceremony. And they chose those activities themselves. They came up with the ideas, they made the goals.

The Scouts have recently been criticized for selling cookies. I've heard it all: the national Movement takes most of the profits and leaves little for the troops, the girls are exploited, the cookies are horrible for you, they are falsely advertising "zero trans fat", and in a day and age where Jamie Oliver is crusading against the pitiful excuse for food we serve to our kids through the national school lunch program, we are putting our daughters on the street to pimp, of all things, sugary chocolate treats, laden with sodium, sugar and fat.

Let me address these concerns:

1. Cookies cost about $3.50 a box. Of this, about $0.55 goes directly to the troop that sells the cookies.

2. About $2.00 goes to support the work of the local Council. This may sound like bureaucracy, but the Council is what makes so many of the Scout programs available, and cookie money keeps our camps up, running, maintained and staffed. It pays for safety and leader training, and funds scholarships for girls who can't afford the annual membership fee of $12.

3. About $0.11 per box pays for the girls' sale incentives. Badges, cookie credits, stuffed animals, and other swag.

3. The bakers get about $0.84 per box to cover the cost of the cookies.

This info comes directly from my cookie manager guide book. You'll notice that no money goes to the national movement. They get their own grants from places like the United Way. They do high-end fundraising. Why? Because they sponsor research and develop leadership programs. The national movement maintains relationships with international scouting organizations, advises on policy positions, and upholds the legacy of Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of American Girl Scouting. They do great work, but the girls aren't pushing cookies to support them. Likewise, cookie sales are voluntary. Troops and girls decide whether or not to participate.

As for the other claims, well, I honestly can't say. "Zero trans fat" is a claim that can be made when there is less than a certain amount of trans fat per serving. It probably is a misnomer. I can't say, I didn't do the science in figuring out that claim. Likewise, I agree that it seems incongruous to have our kids pedaling treats when we're fighting an obesity epidemic. But here's my answer to that: let's use this opportunity not only to teach leadership, goal-setting and entrepreneurship, but also moderation. I see no problem with showing the girls what a serving of Samoas is (three cookies, if you must know), and saying hey - eat healthy, and treat yourself in moderation. A few cookies here and there, well balanced with healthy whole foods (and hopefully a glass of fat-free milk or ice water) can be a great treat. Perhaps that's the model they should learn, not "eat a whole box in one sitting." (Admit it. You've done it. We all have.)

Look, I'm as guilty as the next American when it comes to overindulging. It's a battle I have fought my entire life. I'm working on it. I want to learn to garden, and I want to reduce my family's dependence not only on processed food, but on corporate groceries overall. I want to source local fresh foods, grow some of our own, and really examine what goes on our plates and where it comes from. I also want to look at how far our food has to travel. Why are we getting grapes from Chile in December? Why are my strawberries coming from California, when I know they are in season in Minnesota?

I'm also realistic enough to know that a big sea change within my family still leaves parts of the shore intact: we will inevitably have occasion to grab fast food; we will certainly have temptations to overcome. But part of being healthy is balancing those things out. Nobody's perfect, not even Jamie Oliver.

But we can all sure as hell do our best.

The Girl Scout Law
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do;
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and be a sister to every Girl Scout.

Celebration Anxiety

This past week was amazing and anxiety-inducing all at the same time. How on Earth was I going to start watching what I eat right before a holiday weekend, with my sister visiting, a wedding, a couple of lunch meetings, sending Bea off to school, and any number of other factors and issues?

By just doing it, that's how.

Life happens. There will ALWAYS be weddings and funerals and birthdays and celebrations and life events, and using them as an excuse to start "next week" or have a "bad day" is lame. Here is where I draw inspiration from Sooz: the girl drinks and socializes to her heart's content. She eats (essentially) whatever she wants, within reason. She balances her socializing with training like a mad woman and also being careful about her eating: if she has a sushi dinner date planned, she will eat gently the rest of the day to accommodate. If she wants a crazy insane cheeseburger, she works out to cancel out the intake. She's never minced words about that. If our law school tribe asks her to go out to lunch and we're going somewhere incompatible with her plan for that day, she simply declines. We all know it's not personal with Sooz...while we love her company, and she ours, we just get it. It's not personal to us; it's personal to her, and we all have priorities. I think law school has desensitized us to taking things personally; I am far more likely to take a "no" at face value and move on than ever before.

And so, thinking about Sooz, I approached last week by eating gently whenever nothing was planned, and trying not to worry too much about situations like Jon & Julia's wedding last Saturday, or the State Fair, or whatever. I hate denying myself when I'm out! What's the point of going to a wedding if you're going to feel guilty about eating wedding cake and boozing up the groom? (For the record, I probably need to temper this attitude a *little*. Fuzzy navels all night and three(!) pieces of wedding cake might be considered a little excessive, but I only did one tequila shot with the groom. Only one! And I do love myself the tequila. PATRON, baby!) I also did a little mitigation by choosing the vegetarian plated dinner, which turned out to be a delicious butternut squash ravioli with leeks and a very light cream sauce. NOM.

As for the State Fair, well... let's be frank: there was no temperance there. None can be had, I'm convinced. The choice then, is to go once a year and get it out of your system, and give yourself the day to enjoy, or to not go at all.

My goal for last week was to eat breakfast every day, and I'm proud to say I did it. I hauled the blender out, and when I didn't have breakfast plans, I made a 5-Factor Smoothie for myself, following Harley Pasternak's recipe (below). I plan to continue this, as it really worked for me. Smoothies are quick, portable and tasty, and have enough natural sugar in the fruit to sate my sweet tooth.

Mara had to work late last Thursday, so we put off our weigh-in until Saturday evening (last night), before we went out for her birthday(which...awesome! Donny Dirk's Zombie Den gets two thumbs up, and Psycho Suzi's lives up to its reputation.)


The Results
Last week's weight: 288.0
This week's weight: 285.6
Weekly change: -2.4
Net change: -2.4

Not bad for a busy, social week!
This week's goals: continue with the smoothies/breakfast, and exercise a total of 180 minutes. That's 3x an hour-long workout, or 6x 30 mins, or most likely, 2 hour-long sessions and 2 30 minute sessions. I'm going to make it a point to get baby Elle in the stroller and go for a nice long walk a couple times this week, and we have found a new babysitter, and the school pool opens this week for fall hours, so SWIMMING!

Naming Names

For the last couple of years, I've referred to my firstborn daughter on this blog as "The Girl." Easy enough, right? My husband is "The Boy", and that's also easy enough to distinguish. I do this to maintain privacy -- my name is out there, and if you know me, you know them, and that's fine. However, my husband's business is such that he does not want a social online presence, and I am a lioness when it comes to my kids. Therefore, it's in everyone's best interests to remain nameless.

However.

We now have a second child, who is also a girl. This complicates things. (See, even at birth, women are complicated. L2Deal, men...) How would I distinguish the two? I didn't want to call her "the baby" because she won't be one for very long, and I didn't want to give her a name and not give her sister a name, or vice-versa. So I thought about it (for about ten seconds) and came up with the following.

I have a Big Girl.
I have a Little Girl.

B.G. and L.G.

B and L.

Bea and Elle!!

Therefore! Henceforth, the Girl will be known as Bea, and the baby will be known as Elle. Both are pseudonyms, but easy, namey sort-of things, which are cute in their own girly way. I could send these names to school and the teacher wouldn't look at me in a weird way.

So. There you have it. Hope it's not too confusing for anyone.