The 1st step is to look at the list of ingredients to differentiate:

• A cookie that is just “transformed”: that is, with a recipe close to what you can make at home.
• From an “ultra-processed” cookie, so far removed from the ingredients you might have in your cupboard.

To understand, you can compare 2 cookies encrusted with chocolate chips.

Chocolate casseroles (St Michel) versus Granola Lu cookies.

• On the one hand, the Cocottes St Michel contain only foods that you find in the kitchen. Wheat flour, sugar, butter, rapeseed oil, milk, natural vanilla flavor, free-range eggs.
• On the other hand, Cookies Granola (Lu), have an extending composition with ingredients that you do not have in your cupboard. Modified corn starch, soybean fiber powder, glucose syrup, dextrose, palm oil, shea oil, whey powder, flavors and colors (artificial), glycerol (stabilizer).

The first benchmarks to remember are:

• Real ingredients, that is to say those found in a real kitchen.
• “Pure butter” recipes, if possible.
• For baking powders, it is better only “carbonates” and track down “phosphates” (E450).

Choose “whole grain” cookies

In theory, it is indeed better, but in practice, it is sometimes pure marketing since only a small part of these flours are complete.

In the Mini-Prince BIO or BN chocolate, only 15% of the wheat flour is complete. The rest is refined wheat flour, devoid of any nutrient of interest to health!

Differences in the composition of the chocolate used

• Bjorg Milk Chocolate Fourrés: 4 ingredients (cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk, cocoa mass).

• 8 ingredients in Milka choco supreme or Little Bonne Maman cookies.
• The palm goes to the Pépito au lait, there are 12 of them.

The point to remember is that ideally, a milk chocolate made with 4 ingredients. Also prefer dark chocolate cookies, rather than milk chocolate, there are generally fewer ingredients and less sugar.

Watch the sugar content

Once the composition is good, the 2nd step is to look at the nutritional table. In the column per 100 g, the line “of which sugars”.

The sugar contents vary from:

• 24 g Dark chocolate coated Lu – 26 g and Jardin Bio filled.

• 40 g Petit écolier or Michel et Augustin cookies.
• 47 g for DéliChoc milk and Lulu tray (2 trays = 1 sugar).

Another benchmark to remember is the sugar content, less than 33 g per 100 g (i.e. 1/3 of the product max). For a dry biscuit (without chocolate), do not go beyond 25 g per 100 g (so ¼ of the product).

Salt, the last criterion for choosing your cookies

The last criterion to consider is salt. The “salty” palm is awarded to Granola Lait.

1.25 g of salt per 100 g as much or more than crisps! The Cookies Choco sensations Milka are also big suppliers of salt (0.90 g / 100g).

What consumption for a snack?

You can eat cookies but it all depends on the sugar content and the weight of the cookies which vary a lot from one brand to another. Generally it is recommended between 25 and 30 grams, or 2-3 cookies.

Pay particular attention to the individual sachets which sometimes contain 5 or 6. It is an unstoppable marketing technique to consume more because it is obvious that no one, once the sachet has been opened, will keep 2 or 3 cookies for the 4th. hours of the next day.

Interest of these chocolate cookies

All chocolate biscuits have a nutritional density close to zero, admittedly a hint of vegetable protein and fiber but for vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, they are non-existent.

These are especially real little calorie bombs that oscillate between 460 and 535 calories per 100 g.

For example, if you eat the 6 Fondant Hearts Michel et Augustin (the packet), this represents half of the recommended daily caloric intake.

We must therefore avoid anchoring the idea deeply in the minds of children, and therefore of future adults, that these are good balanced daily snacks. They must remain troubleshooting because they always and again maintain the appetite for the sweet taste.

Nothing beats a slice of a good sourdough bread with a little butter, a square of chocolate and a piece of fruit of course for balance.