From: sbhattac@sales.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: De-muffining
Summary: On the composition of cookies
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:47:17 GMT
Organization: NYU Stern School of Business

In article <18195@oasys.dt.navy.mil> jeanthea@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Mark Jeantheau) writes:
>In rec.food.veg, traub@rtf.bt.co.uk (Michael Traub) writes:

>> .........  A  diet  of  chocolate biscuits and potato crisps is actually a
>>better  protein  source than brown rice! (And by better I do not mean it is
>>better for you:-).
>
>You made this as a casual assertion, with no analysis or references.
>I simply made a casual observation that it didn't seem reasonable.

I express no opinion on chocolate chip cookies as a source of nutrition,
but here is a casual analysis of what's in them, based on the experience
of being responsible for the chemical analysis of several hundred samples
over a decade or so. And right now I'm involved in standardizing methods
for the analysis of a set of lower fat cookies for one of the biggest
cookie manufacturers in the US, including chocolate chip cookies, so there
is even some possibility that I know what I'm talking about. We'll have
analyzed a few hundred samples over the course of several months by the
time this is done.

Cookies range quite wildly in composition, so let's make some defensible
assumptions for a chocolate chip cookie. The numbers, of course, are only
first approximations, since things vary a fair bit. Anyone who gives you a
single number for any of these analytes and suggests that the numbers have
any general utility across any range of cookies should be treated with the
gentleness due an intellectually disadvantaged cauliflower.

Note also that it is easy to pick numbers for the different analytes which
are perfectly possible in themselves, but which, together, present silly
combinations of values, like adding up to wildly over 100 %, or wildly
under. Also, I express fat as per cent by weight, to forestall any silly
discussion of how come the fat numbers look so low.

The basic constituents are flour, fat, sugar, chocolate. The final analysis
shows about 20-30 % simple sugars, 20-30 % fat, and 10-20% moisture. 20%
moisture would make for a pretty wet cookie. (Breads are about 30% water.)

Chocolate is usually some 30% sugar, somewhat more fat, and the rest
of it has a fair amount of protein, exactly how much depends on the
chocolate. For simplicity, let's ignore the chocolate. The composition of
chocolate is not wildly different from the average composition of a cookie,
and most cookies are not dominated by the chocolate, anyway. Milk chocolate
probably raises the protein number, in any case. The premium chocolate chip
(or chunk) cookies tend to be very high in fat, by the way.

So a generic non-chocolate cookie has approximately 50% of its weight from
the flour. It could be as high as 60% (rather unlikely), or as low as 40%.
I'm assuming a fairly sweet, fairly fat-laden cookie.

Flour is about 12% protein. At 50% flour, that makes a cookie about 6%
protein. That's not far from what you would see in cooked pasta.

Cookies which are simply flavoured with chocolate, usually with some
cocoa-like powder, would be very similar. Chocolate chip cookies would not
be very different either.

Do with that what you will.

- Shankar