Tidbits: How sweet it is?

Article by: AL SICHERMAN , Star Tribune
Updated: October 27, 2010 - 2:52 PM

Less sugar but not fewer calories in these cookies.

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How sweet it is?

There's a new Reduced Sugar Sugar Cookie mix from Pillsbury, with 50 percent less sugar than regular sugar-cookie mix. Mr. Tidbit was amused both by the idea of reducing the sugar in a sugar cookie (which sounds like a reduced-chocolate chocolate bar -- what's the point?), and by how little nutritional difference that reduction seemed to make.

Mr. Tidbit will stipulate that if your goal is to reduce your sugar intake, obviously you should reduce the amount of sugar in what you eat. But if your goal is calorie reduction, you might be surprised.

This new product is from the part of Pillsbury now owned by J.M. Smucker (with a name like Pillsbury, if it's flour or a dry baking mix, it's got to be J.M. Smucker). Comparing it with the pouch of regular sugar-cookie mix from Betty Crocker:

There is indeed half the sugar (6 grams per two-cookie serving, compared with 12 in the Betty Crocker mix). The Pillsbury mix sweetens up by adding 4 grams per serving of maltitol, a sugar alcohol. (Remember sugar alcohols from the heyday of the low-carb diet? Moderate amounts are fine, but excessive consumption can result in digestive unpleasantness.) The Pillsbury mix also contains some sucralose (the generic of Splenda).

So what does all that sugar substitution do to calories? Two cookies made from Betty Crocker's mix contain 160 calories; two cookies made from Pillsbury's mix contain 140 calories. And half of that difference comes from the slightly larger amount of fat in the Betty Crocker mix.

AL SICHERMAN