Luke Field
Most of my formative years were spent in the 1990s during the height of the health food craze. And, as someone who, for most of their life, has a body type scientifically known as “chonky,” I felt the effects of diet food marketing. I found myself eating chips that cause anal leakage and attempting to convince my mom to get me Slimfast shakes. I was 10 years old.
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One of the biggest marketing ploys of this era was low-fat or nonfat food, particularly desserts. The messaging here was that a “low-fat” cookie is better for you than a handful of almonds that are chock full of fats. Basic logic tells you something ain’t right there. And one of the most egregious brands to propagate this messaging was SnackWells.
What is SnackWells?
Nabisco released the SnackWells line in 1992, featuring several different types of fat-free cookies, including a Vanilla Creme sandwich cookie and a Devil’s Food cookie, by far its most popular. I can tell you in the Field household, we always had them on the snack shelf. You see the label that says fat-free and you think you’re in the clear. But the tricky thing about it was that SnackWells actually had higher carb counts which, we all know, aren’t very helpful in the weight loss or management departments.
So imagine, you are eating “good” foods that are fat-free, yet you aren’t seeing the effects. That’s the environment of this era. And, I have extensive first-hand knowledge that SnackWells did not taste good! The Devil’s Food cookie had the consistency of rubber with an outer shell of approximated chocolate and a dry cake inside. The real devil of it all is that if you were craving something sweet, SnackWells didn’t scratch that itch. So, it just sent you back for more, and before you knew it, the box was empty.
Are SnackWells Discontinued?
Nabisco produced SnackWells up until 2017 when it sold the brand to Back to Nature Foods, which is owned by B&G Foods, an umbrella company with a portfolio that includes Ortega, Grandma’s Molasses, and Crisco, among others.
In 2019, Back to Nature “improved the formula” of the Devil’s Food cookie and guess what? They were no longer fat free! All it took was 27 years to figure out that the whole nonfat food craze wasn’t such a great idea. In 2022, the SnackWells brand was finally discontinued. So, that’s what happened to Snackwells Devil’s Food cookies.
What is the SnackWell Effect?
If you didn’t experience the ‘90s first hand, I don’t know if you can actually understand how pervasive this food trend was, and how much SnackWells was at the center of it. There literally is a cultural phenomenon called The SnackWell Effect, in which people are tricked into thinking they have some moral high ground because they are eating “good” food that is non-fat, which leads to them eating way more than they normally would. This essentially counteracts any of the perceived benefits you may get from eating non-fat foods.
And the diet culture of the ‘90s persists to this day wearing a different hat. If you go to the SnackWells website right now, it directs you to go out and buy SkinnyGirl snacks, which is Housewife Bethenny Frankel’s “health” brand (with plenty of disclaimers). The brand claims it allows women to “snack fearlessly,” as if snacking in some other way is scary or dangerous.
Anyone can “go on a diet” if they want to; we all have a right to feel comfortable in our bodies and look the way we want. If dieting is the way you want to do it, by all means. My ax to grind is against companies that cash in on that and perpetuate a social construct about bodies that shouldn’t exist. Every company that markets diet food does not care if we lose weight, gain weight, make ourselves sick, or anything in between.
So when it comes to choosing the foods I eat, my personal belief is if you like to eat it, then eat it. But don’t choose foods based on marketing strategies. That’s the devil’s (food) work.
Will Morgan
Matt Crowley
PLEASE BRING BACK THE DEVIL’S FOOD COOKIE!!!! I CRAVE THEM.
These are delicious and I would like to have them again. But there was another brand of them before snack well made them. I remember them from the 50’s and 60’s
I don’t care if they are not fat free ! They are delicious and I’d love to see them back on the shelf at the grocery store. Please Please Please make them again just change the box !
I agree, I loved this cookies and could care less if they were fat free. Please someone bring those back.
Bring back the snack well devils food cookie. I don’t care if they are no longer fat free.
I really miss the devil’s food cookies!
Please bring back the snackwells devils food cookies. I have a craving for them!!
i LOVE THE DEVILS FOOD COOKIS BY SNACKWELL! BRING THEM BACK.
I DISAGREE I LOVE THE SNACKWELL COOKIES SORRY TO SEE THEY ARE NOT AROUND ANYMORE.
The only product I have been able to find that comes close to those Devils food Cookies are Entenmanns Frosted Devil’s Food Donuts. http://www.entenmanns.com
I want some of those chocolate covered devil foods cake box of cookies they used to sell
Gotta disagree with you on the old devils food cookies. Those tasted good. They changed the recipe and made them gross, then just stopped making them altogether. So be it.
This. Exactly this.
I 100% agree with you, I loved the original devil’s food cookie, it was so good! The “new, improved” version was nowhere near as good!! I widh they would bring those original cookies back!!
Snackwells Creme Sandwich cookies have been and will always be one of my favorite cookies. No other cookie compares to that unique flavor and texture. I’m devastated to find out that unknowingly, the last time I had them would be the last time ever.
When I was a kid in the 50’s, we had delicious, square, chocolate covered, chocolate cake cookies. Devil’s Food Cookies. NOTHING like those insipid “Snackwells”. For years now, I can’t find anything like them. Any sightings out in obscure cookie-land?
The only product I have been able to find that comes close to those Devils food Cookies are Entenmanns Frosted Devil’s Food Donuts. http://www.entenmanns.com
i am 83 and decided i wanted to have what i thought was the best cokkie i had ever had.devil food cockie the originial. they were fantastic i i would eat a box or bag what the hell they ever came in. so i went looking nd found out they no longer exist. so here’s the rest of my story, there are so many cookies on the shelves today some are not worth the money to print the packages, MAKE SOME DEVIL FOOD COOKIES
YES! Let the church say AMEN
Yes, please bring them back. I still crave them and have for many years.
Take the marshmallow off the top of the old style devil food cookies
Take the marshmallow off the devil food cookie
When they sold SnackWell’s to Back to Nature and changed the recipe on the devil’s food cookies, they ruined the best thing ever and now you can’t buy them. I didn’t buy the originals because they were fat-free. I bought them because they tasted good and now you can find nothing like it. so many companies think it’s OK to change the recipe when they have a good thing going and just bite their self in the butt. Sorry, but it’s the truth.
Same thing with Butterfinger. They changed the recipe to try to make it “healthier ” and now it’s gross.
Snack Wells Devil’s Food Cookies were extremely hard to find for awhile. I remember throwing away some trash while visiting the Redwood Forest in October of 1993. I saw a Snack Wells box in the trashcan and almost pulled a George Costanza to see if there were any left in there. When they changed the formula a few years back, they were a completely different animal.
Devils Squares by Little Debbie in th ’60s and all the Snackwell Product and their look a likes suck! The original was the best, and of course they had to ‘improve’ it, HA. Why can’t they learn to leave well enough alone?
These cookies came out in the 1960s under the Nabisco label and they were called “Devil’s Food Squares” back then. This was way before the Snackwell’s label was put on them and they became round.
Not the same thing dude.
I was a young child in the 50s and early 60s. My Grandmother got me addicted to the Devil’s Food Cookies and I loved them my whole life.; UNTIL Nabisco sold them, they became “Snackwells” and the recipe was “improved”. THEY RUINED THEM! No wonder they were discontinued! They tasted like wax with very little chocolate flavor. I know cookies can be fattening and not healthy for us. But these were a treat that I occasionally bought for myself. Why do companies have to mess up a good thing that has been around for decades?
Before they were marketed under the SnackWells name, the exact same product was sold as simply Devil’s Food Cookies as far back as the early 1970s; they were a family favorite (7 kids) and my mother bought them by the case. It was a funny joke that twenty+ years later the cookies were all of a sudden being marketed as “healthy” when they were as sugary—and delicious—as always. As far as mass-produced, processed foods go, they were by far my favorite cookie and very much missed as there’s not another version available anywhere that’s anything close to the original.
Why were the Kellog’s devil food cookies discontinued ?
Bring back the devil food cookie I miss them please make them again when you have something good why cancel them?
any idea if they will make a comeback?