After spending a lot of time contemplating these WhoNu chocolate sandwich cookies, I have reached the following conclusions:

 

1. This is what Cartman's mother would buy him. Except that she would have to file off the "WhoNu?" logo on each cookie, and then repack them inside an Oreo package. Because if Cartman finds out you have been trying to feed him nutritious cookies, the entire town of South Park would suffer his wrath.

 

2. "As much X as a bowl of Y" is one of the most disingenuous phrases in the English language. And the WhoNu packaging makes heavy use of this construction. As much fiber as a bowl of oatmeal! (But oatmeal doesn't have that much fiber, really.) As much vitamin C as a cup of blueberries! (But blueberries aren't really very high in vitamin C.) As much iron as a cup of spinach! (Spinach isn't the best source of iron.)

 

So, basically what they have done is injected a chocolate sandwich cookie with a multivitamin and a bit of fiber. You can find the same thing happening in every grocery store aisle. I call it "vitamin creep." You can buy Splenda that has B vitamins and fiber now. Special K sells a bottled water that has protein in it. 

 

Food producers know that we pay lip service to "wanting to eat healthy," but in reality, we DON'T want to eat healthy. We want Oreos. If we wanted to eat healthy, we would just do that. We would eat a cup of spinach and a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of blueberries, and call it good.

 

At the same time, manufacturers are fighting tooth and nail for shelf space. If you can bring out a new version of your product to sit next to the old version, you get double the shelf space. 

 

Speaking of which, I am pretty sure that these are just a side project of one of the major cookie manufacturers. The box lists a PO box for Suncore Products, but I found a street address for them online. This address is a big office building filled with lawyers, insurance companies, and other such entities. I would bet my hat that it's the office of a Nabisco law firm or something. 

 

Anyway. The cookies themselves are pretty good. I'm leery of eating too many of them, lest those fiber promises come true in a horrifying way. They had a convincingly Oreo-like taste, with a slightly multivitamin-like aftertaste (but that could have just been my imagination). 

 

But if you want nutrition, you should probably eat nutritious foods. Not nutrition-supplemented Oreos.