If you love pies, cookies and candy bars, you’re not alone. Each year, Americans consume more than 7.3 billion pounds of candy, and that doesn’t include cookies, muffins and ice cream. And there’s a good reason: It tastes good.
With my California-sized sweet tooth, I understand the attraction. Sweets taste great, make my endorphins dance with delight and always enhance my sense of well-being. But now that sugar and trans fats have been declared the enemy of the people (and the reason for obesity and diabetes), many of us need to change our sweet ways.
If this sounds too radical for you, don’t despair -- the food industry has some alternatives. Kookie Karma is one of them. “We are taught that all desserts and sweets are bad for us. When we have a sweet craving, which we all do sometimes, we binge on the worst foods -- traditional ice cream, cookies, candy bars -- and then suffer the consequences later. Eating sweet foods does not have to be evil and unhealthy,” says Juli Novotny, founder of Kookie Karma.
Novotny created Kookie Karma as a way of indulging the public in the stuff we crave without the side effects. Her cookies are made with fruit and nuts -- such as raisins, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, cashews, lemon juice, brown rice protein and almond butter -- and provide protein, good fats and complex carbohydrates....
Here's a wish/plea/special request: I'd love a Kookie that tasted like candied yams. Impossible? Who knows! I simply love candied yams, a Thanksgiving staple that makes my mouth water. If you could make your own Kookies, what flavors would you choose?
Notice a change in the life of the supermarket, a transformation that was somewhat subtle, but, when viewed through the passage of time, looks like a disruptive force of enormous power? When I was a child supermarkets were monoliths, an upscale market existed here or there, which really meant the aisles were cleaner, the merchandise the same (albeit more expensive) and the deli counter superior, but they were merely cousins: a supermarket was a supermarket was a supermarket. Today, things have certainly changed! In fact, Kookie Karma would not have been successful 20 years ago. Why? Because huge corporations dominated supermarkets, leaving almost no room for the ambitious entrepreneur with a new and exciting product. As consumers, we've changed this dynamic. Supermarkets now pay attention to organic foods, natural ingredients, fair trade and green policies. Karma's a hoot!
Am I a hypocrite? No comment. But the question is a timely one because of Halloween. Each year, as autumn signals its return (which simply means my local supermarket switches the seasonal decor in the candy aisle), Halloween treats - miniature chocolates, licorice, gum drops, hard candy, toffee and other sugary confections - say: "Eat me!" And I almost always oblige. This time, however, I had the brilliant idea to forgo the junk and have a Kookie Karma instead. Wise choice. Does this mean I won't eat those peanut butter cups that are in the back of my freezer? Um, well . . . gotta run!
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