Crumbl Cookies has gained a lot of attention for its deliciousness and weekly changing flavors, and it now has over a thousand stores located in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Trends in popular social media apps, such as TikTok, where Crumble Cookie customers upload videos reviewing each week’s new flavors, have expanded the company’s virality. 

But in recent months, the hype for these cookies has been speckled with criticism revolving around the bakery goods’ nutrition. 

This brings the question of whether or not the yummy treats are worth the toll they take on our health.

The rise of Crumbl’s popularity is indicative of a much larger trend in American food culture and the nation’s obesity epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 40% of American adults are obese, a statistic that continues to rise, no thanks to the high-calorie and sugar-infested fast food and dessert industries. 

At the heart of the Crumbl Craze— the component that makes these cookies so delicious, is sugar. Many of the brand’s treats contain an alarming amount of it. A single Crumbl cookie ranges anywhere from 30 to even 70 grams of sugar, which is equivalent to 2.4-5.6 tablespoons of sugar. 

One example is from this week’s selection of cookies, the S’mores cake, with 90 grams of sugar, a treat that offers three times the recommended daily limit of 24 grams for women and 36 grams for men. However, for many customers, one cookie isn’t enough. Persuaded by the consistently changing flavors, customers often indulge in multiple cookies, pushing their sugar intake far beyond healthy limits.

According to Georgia Ede, Harvard-trained nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist, Crumbl Cookies are made from ultra-processed ingredients, such as bleached flour and artificial flavors, making for a recipe that is both fattening, addictive, and a disaster for your health. Ede points out how every gram of sugar in these cookies is refined, meaning it instantly turns into glucose in the bloodstream, a risk for high blood glucose and insulin levels. 

The rise of Crumbl Cookies is a part of this growing issue. While the cookies might be delicious, it’s important to remember the toll they can take on our health. The delicious taste of a Crumbl cookie is hard to resist, but the long-term effects of such high sugar-intake is harder to ignore.