Girl scout cookies, loved for varieties such as thin moods and Samoas, attract millions of buyers every year, but a study and lawsuit from 2024 have expressed concern about heavy metals, pesticides and sustainability, which disputes the healthy reputation of the treat.
A study from 2024 conducted by Gmoscience and mothers throughout America analyzed 25 Girl Scout Cookie samples, detecting trace quantities heavy metals – arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and aluminium – together with glyphosate, the herbicide found in Roundup. These findings have led a Class-Action right case that was filed in March 2025 by New Yorker Amy Mayo against Girl Scouts USA and Bakers Ferrero and ABC Bakers. Looking for $ 5 million. The suit claims that the contamination entails health risks.
Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co -author of the Gmoscience Study, expressed concern about the presence of poisonous contaminations in Girl Scout Cookies. The analysis of her team, which was not published in a peer-reviewed diary, reported that all samples tested positively on glyphosate, with thin coins that showed the highest levels at 111.07 parts per billion and 88 percent of the samples with all five heavy metals. The EPA sets a daily glyphosate limit of 0.1 mg/kg body weight for children, which means that a 70-pound child can consume safe levels that much exceed the levels found, because the highest glyphosate level of the study is far below this threshold. Seneff suggested that the findings emphasize a broader problem of toxins in food, although she noticed uncertainty about whether the metal levels were definitely harmful.
The Girl Scouts claim that their cookies meet the FDA and EPA safety standards, a position supported by their February 2025 Blogpost that does not claim food safety. Toxicologist Joe Zagorski from Michigan State University, who spoke with NPR this month, rejected the alarmist tone of the study and noted that a child of 70 pounds should consume 73,000 thin coins daily to achieve a harmful glyphosate level.
Sustainability and ingredient controversies
Palm oil, used in most cookie varieties, has drawn environmental and ethical control. A 2020 New York Times Research Bond Palmolie attached to child labor in Indonesia, and a Greenpeace report from 2022 marked deforestation connections. The Girl Scouts works together with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to find certified supplies, although critics claim that RSPO standards are not consistent. Palm oil is standard in many snacks, such as Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers, but Girl Scout efforts to continue to improve the sourcing are assessed, without public updates since 2023.
Earlier recipes used partially hydrogenated oils, phased out after the trans fat ban of the FDA 2015. Current formulas include “natural flavors” and preservatives such as sodium metabisulfiet, both approved by the FDA but discussed by cleaning lawyers. These additives appear in countless products, from grains to soft drinks, although their vague labeling frustrates some consumers.
The cookies have also raised eyebrows. A portion of thin coins of four cookies provides 160 calories, 8 grams of fat and 10 grams of sugar, according to USDA data, while Samoas have 140 calories, 7 grams of fat and 11 grams of sugar. The data from 2020-2023 of the CDC connect excessive sugar intake with obesity and diabetes, with 41.9 percent and 14.7 percent of American adults respectively. The myplate guidelines of the USDA recommend limiting added sugars to 10 percent of the daily calories – about 50 grams for most adults – which means that four thin coins make up 20 percent of that compensation.
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