
Well, I suppose there's no harm (except calorically) in eating the sugar-free sandwich cookies offered by Kellogg's Murray division (aside also from the possible deleterious effects of the artificial sweeteners and other ingredients, taken in too much haste particularly)...but aside from the only three (3) flavors (chocolate, vanilla and lemon) offered by Murray, when you can find even all three of them on a market shelf, the flavor variety of their sugary competitors is rather compelling in comparison. Kellogg's itself (through the kinds of mergers and acquisitions that seem to be the trend among successful medium-to-big-sized companies over the last several decades--in this case, Kellogg's thus becomes too big to crumble) manages to offer both Keebler and Famous Amos cookies, the latter's chocolate-wafer sandwich the more-or-less closest equivalent available to the Sunshine Hydrox of yore, moderately famously loved by such folks as blogger Kim Burton and writer Harlan Ellison...the Amos wafer part of the cookie, like the Hydrox though perhaps a bit less so, tasting more cake-like and less candied than that of Hydrox's younger rival, Oreo, which managed to outmuscle Hydrox over the decades in the marketplace (Sunshine's Vienna Fingers, however, were dominant in that arena, and Keebler and Kellogg's have kept them available). The sugar and fat white stuffing of both the standard Amos and Oreo are perhaps the weak point, which is where Keebler made much of its early mark, with chocolate-"creme" slathered between its wafers as "E. L. Fudge," and the original "Grasshoppers," with chocolate wafers and spearmint filling (the more recent imitation-Girl Scout-cookie Grasshoppers of the last couple of decades are less worthwhile, but have allowed various competitors to rush in with their products).
Trader Joe's "Joe-Joes" brands offer several flavors (including the distinctive peppermint, then candy-cane, flavor that seems to excite people to Hydrox levels of lust), but the champeen of flavors among the national brands seems to be Newman's Own (particulary the ginger sandwich), despite the Nabisco attempts to do all sorts of things to excite us further about Oreos (including ridiculously overpriced sugarless ones, disgusting "Cakesters" and the not-bad not-quite vanilla "Golden" Oreos) and a few sustained offshoots, such as the less sugary Nutter Butter peanut-butter sandwiches. Famous Foods of Virginia, if I remember correctly, used to offer rather good oatmeal-cookie and chocolate-chip-wafer sandwiches that no one else seems to be marketing these days...rather a pity (the same folks used to have something exactly like the Girl Scout-cookie "Samoa"...which only made sense, as FFV at that time apparently was the baker of GS cookies). And perhaps the Whole Foods (aka Whole Wallet) "365" brand chocolate and vanilla wafer sandwiches are the best of that ilk, among the national brands.

























