THERESA: It's Girl Scout Cookie season. I love Girl Scout Cookies. They always come on sale just when we've run out of homebaked holiday treats. Last year at this time, I had never heard of dreaded transfats. Now, I'm all too aware of the dangers of hydrogenated vegetable fat and I'm worried that eating Girl Scout cookies is about as healthy as smoking cigarettes. Am I wrong?

APRIL: Actually they now make reduced fat lemon cookies, they are pretty good, and you get five cookies for 4 grams of fat

JILL: You want healthy cookies? Have you gone mad, woman? Cookies are supposed to be an indulgence, a treat, and as long as you don't eat an entire box at a sitting, you can handle the transfats. My approach to this, as in all things that are bad for you, is moderation.

THERESA: Hmmm... THAT'S an idea. Not eat an entire box at one sitting? I guess I could give it a try...

LAURIE: Having grown up enjoying the fragrant smells from the old Nabisco (now Kraft) cookie factory on Roosevelt Boulevard in the Northeast, I feel guilty to admit I never eat those store-bought cookies. But as a former Girl Scout, I loyally scarf down a few Thin Mints every season! Does anybody know if these cookies contain transfats, etc.?

APRIL: I grew up very close to another Nabisco factory in Fair Lawn NJ. On the playground at elementary school the smell was heavenly!

THERESA: I checked on the Girl Scout Web site, which offers detailed nutrition info. Some varieties of Girl Scout cookies contain no trans fats: Caramel Delites, Peanut Butter Patties and "Pinatas," new this year. I think it's cool they list that information on their labels already. The Food and Drug Administration recently decreed that companies must list trans fats separately on their nutrition labels by January 2006, and we can expect food companies to begin promoting new foods that are free of transfats.

On the issue of trans fats, have you cut back on soda crackers, packaged cookies, shortening and other foods that contains this stuff? Do you worry about this at all?

YVONNE W: I think that's something to worry about. Girl Scout cookies taste great and I love sweets. However, I'm beginning to realize there is more to gain by not indulging in cookies, cakes, candy, pies, etc. Not only for weight loss, but to feel better.

By avoiding these foods I will not be supplying my body with a lot of the harmful ingredients that really have no value other than to satisfy my sweet tooth.

ELLEN: It’s good to know you can trust some Girl Scout cookies. Now that I can’t eat salmon and suspect that drinking diet cola is a near death experience, I can at least eat cookies.

JILL: I have a really hard time keeping all of the nutritional information straight, and which study has debunked which study. I even stopped taking calcium for a while because I read that most vitamins were a waste of money, until I was chided by my gynecologist (who clearly thought I was a dumb cluck to have confused calcium supplements with the other useless ones.) I did start using butter again and avoiding margerine, but it's all too much to worry about. I think that's a byproduct of information glut: you can't keep anything straight. So, I try not to focus too much on the minutia of nutrition, and keep to a basic diet that I can adhere to and that seems to be what the experts consider healthy at the moment. I eat mostly vegetables and fruit, some protein, light on carbs, light on fat, light on sweets. But I don't deprive myself of anything (except, ok, potato chips and French fries which I just can't justify).

ELLEN: I’m back on butter. I’m off beef for the time being. I’m off salmon until they figure that out. Yesterday I read that we should all be taking Vitamin D to ward off MS so I’m taking calcium with D. That’s today. I hear you can poison yourself with Vitamin D also.

I also stopped taking vitamins until my daughter’s pediatrician, a woman my age, said she takes One A Day for Women everyday. That was enough of an endorsement for me!

JILL: I'm devastated about the salmon. I eat it twice a day sometimes. How do you know whether the salmon you're buying is farm raised or fresh caught?

THERESA: About 90 percent of salmon consumed in the U.S. is farm-raised.

YVONNE: Come on. A little mercury on the brain from fish. Some trans fats from virtually everything baked and fried. There's an evil aspect to EVERYTHING we eat. We all just aim for the lesser of all evils. Jill, don't fret about your salmon. You are doing yourself way more good than harm eating it. Girls Scout cookies can't be defended for any other reason than helping the girls.

ELLEN: I’m buying a lot of my fresh food at the organic stores around. You have to check the labels to know if it’s organic or semi-organic. I know it costs more. But if I and my family eat less meat, then it all works out. I was a food editor for several years and I’ve learned not to wholesale disregard the warnings. On the other hand, I try not to be too neurotic about what I put in my mouth. Surely, the Girl Scouts would not try to poison us.

THERESA: You're on the right track, Ellen. I talked to a nutritionist last week, Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, who wrote the new book "Good Carbs vs. Bad Carbs." She is so sensible about food. She says stick margarine is about the worst thing you can eat. She says olive oil is basically a health food. She advocates a balance of whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables and low-fat protein. I'll go into greater detail in the next few days about what she has to say -- I do highly recommend her book!

LAURIE: Me, too, Ellen. It's much easier to go organic these days. I agree that we could go nuts heeding all the warnings, so I mostly try to avoid processed foods (which means a cookie I bake is OK!), eat organic meats and produce and moderately indulge in indulgencies.

JILL: That's very good advice, but the prices of organic food are so outrageous and I'm just reluctant to pay. What can a family with kids to raise on a budget do to stay healthy without spending a fortune?

ELLEN: I guess we all need to eat more rice and beans.

THERESA: Not a bad habit, by the way. I love Hoppin John and all kinds of bean-and-rice dishes, especially this time of year. Bean soup is delicious and filling. Have a big bowl and you won't be so likely to eat those Girl Scout cookies by the boxful!