Thursday, November 6, 2008

Pamela's Products: Incredible Cookies, But Not All Sugar-Free


Have you ever heard of Pamela's Products? They make delicious, gluten-free and wheat-free cookies, some of which are also sugar-free. However, in the last year or so, Pamela's has changed some of their cookie recipes to include sugar as an ingredient. It's been terrible! My favorite cookie, the Lemon Shortbread cookie, was so good. I used to graze right through an entire box in one evening (not good), because it was hard to stop eating them. Anyway, I wrote to the company a while back to inquire about the ingredient change. I received a quick reply back from Pamela's, explaining that due to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, their honey supply has been inefficient and too expensive to continue buying.

I did not understand that very well, but left it alone. Recently, however, I was craving those Lemon Shortbread cookies again, and thought I would recheck the ingredients at the store. Sadly, they are still using sugar, and are using sugar in other cookie recipes, as well. While they do offer a small selection of sugarless cookies, I can't help but wonder why they don't make all of their cookies sugar-free. After grazing through my box of sugar-free Ginger cookies, I decided to write to Pamela's again. Here is the letter I sent:

"11-6-08

Hello. I have contacted Pamela's before to ask about the disappointing ingredient change in the cookies. I consume no refined sugar and have had to stop buying most of Pamela's cookie products. If you have noticed a decrease in sales of the Lemon Shortbread cookies over the last year or so, it is because the ingredients now contain sugar, and I have discontinued buying this product. I received a response about this months ago, which explained that it has become difficult to find a honey supplier to sweeten the cookies. However, there are so many natural sweeteners that could be used in place of sugar! Agave, molasses, honey, stevia, brown rice syrup, date sugar, etc. I really miss the lemon shortbread cookies, and some others, and have had to resort to the ginger cookies only--which I LOVE, by the way. They are absolutely heavenly and sweetened only with molasses. Is it possible to reformulate your cookie recipes at some time and go back to using natural sweeteners? What can I do to help?

I had a habit of recommending Pamela's cookies to people, but now do not feel comfortable recommending a product with sugar. There are a lot of people looking to cut out all refined sugar, and there are few packaged products out there that offer a delicious and naturally sweetened goodie. Please bring back your naturally sweetened cookies!

Thank you.
Sincerely..."

I'm anxious to hear from them!

2 comments:

C and G said...

Hi!
So November is my "Month without" :) Baby steps.

I was craving some hot chocolate on this blustery Portland day and decided to play and found a too simple fix that I thought I would share:

2 T Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder
2 T honey
1 cup milk

smash cocoa powder together with honey add hot milk stir and Mmmmm - perfect!

Thanks for the inspiration and I hope Pamela's listens to you!

My Year Without said...

Congratulations on Day 6 of your Month Without! You can do it! When you get to the end of the month, do you think you might continue going without sugar? I would love to know your thoughts around that time!

Yes, today has remained "morning" all day--the mist, the gray sky, the chill. Perfect for a mug of hot cocoa! I came up with the same thing for hot cocoa--only I used unsweetened almond milk. It is so comforting to drink. Nothing else comforts like hot chocolate....and it's so exciting that it can be done sugar free!

And yes, Pamela's listened, wrote and may be open to changing back....the more we let them know what we the customer want, the more likely they are to go natural. Even so, they are a great company offering a great product.