• July 25, 2008

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, in a press release, chided the Girl Scouts of the USA for renting its name to Dairy Queen in the form of the chain's new Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard.

The large size, said the activist group, has more than 1,000 calories and provides more than a day's saturated fat. Even the small, said CSPI, is like drinking a Big Mac.

"Selling cookies door to door is one thing," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "But renting out its nonprofit brand name to a junk-food chain is a major badge of shame for the Girl Scouts. It runs counter to the Girl Scouts' mission, and this product and its marketing campaign deliver a very unhealthful message to young girls and others. If you were designing a product with the intent of promoting obesity and type-2 diabetes in girls, it would look exactly like the Thin Mint Blizzard."

Minneapolis-based Dairy Queen is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.--Nina M. Lentini