Healthy Food Review: Hostess 100 Calorie Cupcakes and Hostess 100 Calorie Muffins
The concept of the Hostess 100 Calorie Muffin product line intrigued me because I’m a huge fan of the Hostess 100 Calorie Muffins (the chocolate one that brings back fond childhood memories with fewer calories). My husband surprised me one day with a package of Hostess 100 Calorie Blueberry Muffins, and then I saw his banana muffins on the package, so I had to try those too!
In case you haven’t opened the box of one of these 100 calorie Hostess products before, I want you to be prepared. These are the smallest cupcakes and muffins in the world! Each Hostess 100 Calorie Muffin or Cupcake will be slightly larger in diameter than most bottle caps.
The good news is that those 100 calories entitle you to eat three of these Hostess cupcakes or muffins. So if the psychological benefit of being able to say “I just ate three Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes” or “I just ate three Banana Muffins” is important to you, you’ll love this product! If you’re looking to feel full, that’s not going to happen.
Hostess 100 Calorie Blueberry Muffins taste super sweet and are like a smaller version of the Dunkin Donuts Reduced Fat Blueberry Muffin that I treat myself to every once in a while. Hostess 100 Calorie Banana Muffins are also super sweet and have lots of banana flavor.
I’m okay with the muffins that look like they could have been from the old classic Disney movie “Honey, I shrunk the kids.” What I don’t like is that there is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in all Hostess 100 calorie offerings (meaning there are trans fats in them). So yeah, because of stupid government labeling laws that allow a food that has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat to be labeled “trans fat free,” Hostess can proudly and legally claim “0 grams of trans fat.” trans” on your product packaging. Of course, in fairness to Hostess, they’re not the only ones who can make this claim courtesy of the government.
While 0.5 grams is a trivial amount of trans fat, there is no safe amount of trans fat!
And if you have a couple of “0 grams trans fat” items in a day, that’s not really “0 grams” at all. It can easily add up to the number that experts have said is a problem: more than 2 grams of trans fat per day.
So from my point of view, if I’m going to eat any food free of trans fat, it has to be incredibly worth it, and I have to be careful with similar foods for the rest of the day. So between Hostess’s 100 Calorie Muffins and Hostess’s 100 Calorie Chocolate Cupcakes, there’s no contest. I’ll take the hostess cupcakes. They are one of my favorite “in case of chocolate emergency, glass breaker” items to have on hand that won’t do me much harm.
Sorry Hostess, I have to skip the bagels, and save your Hostess’s 100 calorie bagels for special occasions.
Copyright 2008 SunLover Publishing LLC