A not-so-nice surprise in your kid's graham crackers

If you have kids, chances are you have a box of graham crackers sitting in your pantry.  If you're a baker, you might have some graham crackers sitting around for a pie crust or maybe even some smores.  Graham crackers seem synonymous with childhood and pies.  Both of my kids' schools keep graham crackers on hand as emergency snacks. 

Know what else seems synonymous with graham crackers?  Trans fat and HFCS.  Yum, yum!

It's been a while since I've bought graham crackers, but I did just that last week.  I had a dessert recipe that called for graham crackers, and the kids thought that they would be a tasty snack as well.  I went to the graham cracker aisle and did my normal box flip to scan the ingredients, and was disgusted to find that every single box of graham crackers in that particular grocery store had partially hydrogenated oils and usually HFCS too.  Keebler graham crackers, Nabisco graham crackers, Teddy Grahams, graham cracker sticks of every sort, the store brand - every single one (and a few others that aren't listed) contained partially hydrogenated oils as an ingredient. And yes, those premade graham cracker pie crusts, they generally have partially hydrogenated oils in them too.


What's a mom to do?  We've made a commitment to NOT buy foods containing partially hydrogenated oils (need some reasons to do the same?  Read about trans fat here.), so I went on a search.  Luckily, there are graham crackers without partially hydrogenated oils or HFCS on the market.  Both of the other grocery stores in my small town carry at least one of the two that I know about.

We bought New Morning Organic Honey Grahams.  And you know what?  They tasted just as good as the graham crackers that use partially hydrogenated oils.

Another option that seems to be a common brand is Mi-Del Honey Grahams.

Or you could even go so far as to make your own.  I bought some graham flour a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of trying this recipe for graham crackers. 

And if you need a pre-made graham cracker crust option, look for Arrowhead Mills pie crusts. Graham cracker pie crusts are incredibly easy to make too.

The moral to this story?  Don't assume that just because something is marketed toward your children that it is trans fat free!  (In fact, these days it seems like if a product is marketed toward children, it's sure to be filled with sugar and less-than-desirable ingredients.)  Flip those boxes over and read the ingredients!  And also remember that just because one brand has an ingredient that you don't like, doesn't mean that they all do.  I can usually find a substitute with an ingredient list that I can stomach with just the smallest amount of work.  Or make it myself!