Dive Brief:

• The Girl Scouts are experimenting with a gluten-free cookie this year in some markets.
• The new chocolate chip shortbread cookie is also free of artificial colors, palm oil, high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.
• The gluten-free variety is made by ABC Bakers, one of two bakers licensed to make cookies for the Girls Scouts.

Dive Insight:

The tradition of the Girl Scout Cookie began in Philadelphia in 1932. Since then it has grown to epic proportions — millions of American girls have sold them. Tens of millions of Americans have eaten them.

One of the more interesting things about the Girl Scouts is that the group seems able to change with the times in a way that the Boy Scouts have not. The Boy Scouts seem forever embroiled in membership controversies.  The Girl Scouts, on the other hand, seem to be forever immune to the more divisive elements in our culture.

So somehow, amid all the fighting about "natural" foods and GMO labels and such, we are both pleased and reassured to see that the Girl Scouts have entered the food wars with a gesture of inclusion. "Millions of Americans have problems eating food with gluten," the organization says on its website. "So we've created a delicious cookie just for them!"

Thanks, Girl Scouts! 

You keep taking care of our girls, and we'll keep buying the cookies.