Mini Drug Pushers in Training

It's here.

It's the time of year when those tiny little crack dealers known as the Girl Scouts of America push their delicious diet busting morsels upon us. My Facebook feed is blowing up with the mothers of these precious little minions asking if their friends would like to pre-order their inevitable extra 5 pounds. Would I like to? He'll yes! Am I going to? I'd like to say no... But????

Two years ago I was lucky enough to be pregnant during Girl Scout Cookie season. "The baby" was eating box after box of Lemon Cremes and Thin Mints and Tagalongs. I even ordered MORE cookies from my friend after "the baby" ate all of her first order. "The baby" ate a total of six boxes of the cookie goodness over a month.

Six boxes really isn't that horrible if you're pregnant and your cravings are for all things sweet. But what about when you're a normal, non pregnant, healthy living/healthy eating person conscious of what you eat? Six boxes means a lot of self loathing and Pepto Bismol.

If you're a person who does not have an issue with eating a realistic 2-3 cookie serving at a time, it's not an issue to order a box or two of your favorite cookies. But for the rest of us, the Girl Scouts make it damn near impossible to eat just one serving. The packaging almost makes you eat an entire sleeve of cookies in one sitting, which is like 3-4 servings depending on the cookie. But then you have the OTHER side of the cookies in the box.. And sometimes you don't want to leave them all lonely rattling around the empty box space where their friends used to be. Or you just enjoyed the first sleeve so much that you can't stop, knowing that there are more. And before you know it, you just ate the whole box and you're cursing those little girls for selling you their version of crack, when its really your fault for buying it in the first place. And forget buying a box to "donate" or "send to the troops". Unless the troop does it for you, you know that box will never make it to the post office.

So before you buy and binge, try these tips:

1. Immediately portion out individual servings into snack sized ziplock bags and put them in the freezer. They take longer to eat when frozen, so hopefully you can stick with one serving. And stick with just one box - don't deprive yourself, but don't overdo it if you can help it.

2. If you're buying cookies because your family wants them, get a flavor you're not a fan of (I'm looking at you, Samoas, you nasty coconutty piles of gross).

3. If you're buying to support the troop of Girl Scouts, or to help your niece/daughter/friends' kids, buy the flavor you don't like and bring them to work or a food shelf, if the troop doesn't have an option to send to the troops overseas.

4. If you really can't control yourself because you're the equivalent of the furry blue monster on Sesame Street, DO NOT BUY THE COOKIES. You can't eat the whole box if you never bought it in the first place.