It is all about the packaging

Last week, I received an email from the marketing guy of Liz Lovely.  He wanted to send me a box of cookies just as a reader of the blog and for no other reason.  But, I feel compelled to share my experience with other readers.  Liz Lovely is an artisan cookie company from Vermont making vegan treats.  Although I am not a vegan by any stretch of the imagination, I have tried many vegan products that are quite good. 

I received four different cookies.  Chocolate Moose Dragon, Ginger Snapdragons, Cowgirl Cookies and Goats a' Grazin'.    The chocolate was rich and tasty with tiny chips throughout.  The ginger was also full of flavor and intense.  Cowgirl cookies didn't do it for me.  Not to toot my own horn but I make killer chocolate chip cookies and these didn't have the same impact.  The Goats a' Grazin' is an oatmeal cookie with a nice bite too.  But the first 2 were the best.  Very flavorful and had that Natural Health food taste which I like.  I grew up on cod liver oil pills and the oatmeal cookies from our local health food store. 

My only shock was the caloric intake.  Half of each of these cookies ranged from 200-240 calories.  Not a whole cookie, a half.  Perhaps that is what happens when you make vegan cookies to get the flavor that these cookies had. 

But, what was beyond fantastic was the eco-friendly peanuts that the box was filled with to send the cookies to make sure they arrive in good shape.  I find it so annoying when I get a package and it is filled with those styrofoam peanuts that will probably stick around to the 23rd Century.  They are awful.  These eco-peanuts disintegrated in the sink.  At first, I was wary.  I through a couple of them into the sink, turned on the faucet and watched them melt.  Then I tossed the entire box down the sink and ran the water.  Within seconds, all gone.  Genius. 

If every single company used the eco-friendly peanuts instead of the styrofoam ones, that would be a huge environmental shift.  Not sure if Liz Lovely makes these or they buy them from someone else but as good as the cookies are and the fact that they are in over 500 stores, the big money is in selling eco-friendly peanuts around the world.