Did Nabisco Put 20 Extra Pounds On You? The Amazing SnackWell’s Phenomenon
Food giants started out with the best intentions: by the 90s, food scientists were feverishly creating thousands of Frankenfoods laden with high-fructose corn syrup and preservatives
In 1992 when I was pregnant with my daughter Meredith, food cravings led me to drive all over my hometown of Redlands in search of the very sweetest Coca-Cola. I also permitted myself to eat squishy white bread (Wonder Bread or similar). If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have used my pregnancy as an excuse to deviate so gleefully from the healthy foods I was brought up with. I only gained 40 pounds.
It took me about six months to lose the baby weight — during which time I ate SnackWell’s under the mistaken impression they were better for me than full-on Oreos or similar cookies.
SnackWell’s defined the 1990s food push: low or no-fat — everywhere!
I was as susceptible as anyone else to a heavy public push to demonize fat in food and downplay the health risks associated with too much sugar. For many years, I was certain that no-fat foods were the best nutritional option.
Our nation’s major agricultural food producers, companies like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), were looking for ways to sell their already-genetically-modified products for the highest profit. Downstream from them, processed food giants like Nabisco, Campbell’s, and PepsiCo, wanted to acquire basic ingredients at the lowest cost and create the highest-possible profit by turning low-quality ingredients and chemicals into “appealing” packaged products.
Few of us in the general public stopped to look or think that when fats are removed from foods, so is taste. The food scientists of the world, however, were busy at work concocting Franken-products with as much sweetener as possible, from plain-old granulated sugar to high-fructose corn syrup. For diabetics, they had sugar-free versions.
The general public didn’t know any more than I did about the potentially bad health effects of consuming foods with over 100 ingredients, most of which had unpronounceable names.
Soy Lecithin: The Wonder Ingredient
Bruce has always mentioned the “mystery ingredient” in nearly every highly-processed food: soy lecithin. He worked as the continuous improvement expert at the late, much-lamented Philadelphia Nabisco plant. He improved the line, saving the company millions of dollars in lost product.
He tells the story of how one day, he suggested that they package and sell “just the Oreo creme,” i.e. the white Oreo filling.
Bruce’s idea apparently caused some type of upset among the higher-ups at the company — who is this guy?
After all, they already had a team of dedicated food scientists who had been creating products out of non-food and very low-quality basic ingredients for decades.
Bruce also just added, about the Oreo ‘creme’, “It could also be sold like soft-serve ice cream. With a small formula change, it would stand up just like Dairy Queen — but it wouldn’t melt!”
So what is this Oreo ‘creme’?
There are only four ingredients. Oreo creme filling is made from partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil, high-fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin (Bruce says it makes everything ‘run smoothly’ through the massive production lines) and vanillin. Vanillin is an artificial form of vanilla so strong that only a tiny bottle flavors a massive vat of Oreo creme. It’s made from wood and petrochemicals.
Oreos were famously invented by Sam Porcello, Nabisco’s food scientist. Originally, the oil or fat that Sam included in Oreo creme was lard.
If you’re Jewish and reading this — you probably know the reaction better than I do — in 1998, a joyous article appeared in the New York Times announcing that Oreos were now kosher and observant Jews could safely eat them. That’s when Nabisco switched from non-kosher pork fat (lard) to partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil.
The True Meaning of “Empty Calories”
Healthy eating experts refer to the explosion of low- and no-fat highly-processed snack foods in the 1990s as “The SnackWell’s Phenomenon.” The type of and quality of fat in Oreos or any other similar products is probably the least-unhealthy thing about them.
Looking back, it’s fairly obvious why low- and no-fat Frankenfoods were marketed so heavily. Animal fats or — heaven forbid, healthy oils like olive oil — are expensive, especially in comparison to high-fructose corn syrup (a byproduct of ethanol production from corn), ultra-processed wheat, and soy derivatives. These are the main ingredients of Franken-snack-foods, including one of the most famous, SnackWell’s.
Franken-snack-foods are unhealthy because they contain minimal nutrition. When people eat these foods, it’s almost like eating display fruit and vegetables made from plastic: with one exception — plastics aren’t digestible (neither are many of the ingredients in Franken-snack-food). The conglomeration of low-quality basic ingredients — much like pet food — with industrial processes and non-food additives and flavoring result in an unbelievable amount of metabolic harm.
As I’ve noted before, the “calories-in/calories-out” line of reasoning has been sold so hard by the big food producers that most people don’t understand that nutrition quality is what keeps them alive, well, and happy. Many people who are slowly dying from inflammatory metabolic diseases like Type 2 diabetes have nutritional deficiencies.
“Man” Cannot Live on SnackWell’s Alone
And yes, Bruce just told me: they ran the SnackWell’s line at the Philly plant.
In 2015, Mondelez (then the parent company of Nabisco/Kraft) closed the Philly plant which made Oreos, SnackWell’s, Lorna Doone, and many other snack cookies and crackers. The union bakery workers at the plant lost their jobs, which averaged about $25/hour. In their place were many Mexican workers in Monterrey, Mexico: starting wages $0.65/hour. No more continuous improvement: just continuous streams of sugar, flour, cocoa (Bruce says they sourced “the best”), and partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil.
However, all great stories come to an end: the mighty (SnackWell’s) have finally fallen. B&G Foods bought the SnackWell’s brand in 2017 for $162.5 million. Although the brand retained loyal (some say “addicted”) customers, the cookies changed their recipe and formula in 2018 to reduce sugar. They increased, slightly, fat content. Nutrition remained terrible.
SnackWell customers reacted.
“The perfect combination of soft cake and marshmallow.”
I wonder if such loyalty and love would be expressed if any of these lifelong customers knew the way Big Food really works and how their tasty SnackWell’s are made by workers in Mexico making less than $1 per hour, using cocoa sourced from little slave kids.
I’m going to digress to another Bruce story. He interviewed for Ocean Spray and during the process, observed the origin of another popular product that arose in the early 1990s …
Craisins: From Factory Floor to Vat of Sugar, Then Your Mouth
“Craisins are the waste from the factory floor after they make cranberry juice and sauce,” Bruce told me.
“Oh my God, my aunt Donna loves craisins!” I said.
Craisins aren’t just “waste from the floor.” They are the used hulls of cranberries after juice or sauce is produced. They are dried, soaked in sugar (some sources say ‘juice’ — HELLO it’s sugar or it’s cheaper cousin, cane ‘juice’) and some have added “flavoring.” They are then dumped in packages and sold to you at a huge markup. Maybe it costs 5 cents to make and package 6 ounces of delicious craisins. By the time it gets to you?
A cool $2.75.
What is the amazing value that you’re getting? The rave reviews for craisins say, “So fresh! So tasty!”
Before Craisins were “invented,” they were a “huge manufacturing waste problem.” Now they are Ocean Spray’s biggest profit center.
The craisin is one of the sweetest sugar-sweetened products, per ounce, that you can buy. While 1 ounce of craisins will give you 10% of the 30 grams of fiber you need per day (3 grams), they also provide 24 grams of sugar. That’s 4 grams more than a Snickers Bar.
In this miracle of marketing, one serving of craisins, which would fit in the palm of your hand, has more sugar than the world’s most popular candy bar.
And something similar is true of the beloved SnackWell Devil’s Food cookie. Each cookie will give you 50 “calories,” 7 grams of sugar, and no other nutrition. The flour is processed to the point it contains no nutrition. Additives guarantee that the product will last a long time. It’s hard to say what those additives do to us once they’re inside our bodies, but if they prevent microbes from doing the work nature intended them to do, thereby preserving the cookie months and even years longer than any home-made cookie …
… probably not too good for our stomachs and microbes in our gut flora.
The End For SnackWell’s And The Rise Of The New Generation
In 2022, B&G Foods discontinued SnackWell’s. The newly-formulated cookies were unpopular, likely because Sam Porcello, the famous Nabisco “food scientist,” had died in 2012 and was not available to redesign a lower-sugar snack with a little bit of palm oil to grease the skids.
The company has now pivoted to SkinnyGirl snacks, a brand created by a sometimes-overlooked massive celebrity “influencer,” Bethenny Frankel.
Bethenny, a reality show star, created this hydra-like empire of “SkinnyGirl” Franken — wait, let’s call these “Frankel-foods.”
There’s now an infinite number of them, they are all nutritionally horrible, and Bethenny is rich enough to afford enough continuous cosmetic surgery and Ozempic injections for a million lifetimes —
And in yet another twist, Barilla Foods, the Italy-based privately-owned international pasta giant, bought the brand from B & G in December 2022.
Here’s the junk and here’s the branding:
Not joking. Eat this junk and “Live Life Without Compromise.”
You know what’s “crispy” on the outside, “absolutely delicious,” and “creamy on the inside”?
A plum, peach, pear, grape, or apple.
Bethenny Frenkel: the living embodiment of Ozempic face with bolt-on breast implants. But — she wants everyone to live “like her.” I doubt she eats these Frenkel-Frankenfoods. But here is what she’s selling, complete with what looks like a Moscow Mule (diet, natch).
All of these foods started with basic ideas that a “brand” could sell food nationally and acquire loyal customers who would find the same familiar food wherever they traveled, from Campbell’s Soup to the Oreo cookie.
And they created a food system that has made 75% of American adults overweight or obese, with a stunning rise in Type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, immune disorders, and other metabolic disorders. Bethenny: our role model, making and selling foods with this kind of “nutrition.”
There are “only” 120 calories in SkinnyGirl Cocoa Wafer “Bites.”
It’s difficult to obtain the ingredient list for these types of foods: companies like Skinnygirl are legally allowed to skirt the law and use terms like “natural flavors” to disguise their use of nonfood ingredients. But these “delicious” “bites” include chicory root fiber.
That’s right: the minimal fiber in these “delicious” “snacks” is a low-cost waste product of something we don’t usually eat — chicory root.
As a general rule, nothing that comes in a package like this, or that is branded like this, will provide you with the nutrition you need to live. We need basic nutrition to survive.
We do not typically see boxes of tissue sold as “nutritious food” but it’s nearly on that level with these ultra-processed snack foods manufactured out of chemicals, low-grade ingredients like highly-milled and bleached white flour (to which vitamins and minerals are re-added, that is “enriched” flour), and food waste that would otherwise be used as animal fodder or made into fertilizer like chicory root.
Oh: a final thought — these “hassle-free, assertive lifestyle” snacks may tell more than Bethenny would like others to know.
They, like Oreos, are made in Mexico, by workers earning less than $1/hour. We should also all know by now that 70% of the cocoa or chocolate used in our processed food systems comes from child slave labor in Ghana and other African nations. Yum!
Sources
Centers for Disease Control, “Get the Facts: Added Sugars,”
28 November 2021, url: https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/data-statistics/added-sugars.html
Clingingsmith, Garth. “Here’s What’s Actually In Oreo Filling,” Daily Meal, 12 October 2022, url: https://www.thedailymeal.com/1046930/heres-whats-actually-in-oreo-filling/
Dun & Bradstreet. “B&G Foods Manufacturing México, S. de R.L. de C.V.,” url: https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.bg_foods_manufacturing_m%C3%A9xico_s_de_rl_de_cv.cdbdbcdfd90c6d17f67b994ff33499a4.htm
Goggin, Benjamin, “The Cranberry’s Bitter History,” Digg, 15 November 2017, url: https://digg.com/2017/craisin-history
Hammerman, Joshua J. “Lives; The Forbidden Oreo,” New York Times Magazine, 11 January 1998, url: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/11/magazine/lives-the-forbidden-oreo.html
Pariseau, Leslie. “Craisins are the Reanimated Corpse of Your Cranberry Sauce,” Saveur, 24 November 2016, url: https://www.saveur.com/cranberries-food-waste/
“Slave Free Chocolate,” 2023, url: https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/
“SnackWell’s,” SnackWells.com, url: https://snackwells.com/