It’s no secret that since the disappearance of brownie bites in the cafe, students have become increasingly suspicious about the majority of the remaining school snacks. With whispers travelling throughout the halls, students have talked about the lack of brownie bites and pumpkin bites in the cafe since it opened back up this year. It seems the pandemic dealt a death blow to the sweet and affordable treats. The student body has been offered no answers as to why their favorite morning, mid-day and afternoon snack was taken off the menu.

“Personally, I liked the brownie bites because they were cold and melted in your mouth,” senior Emma Richards said. “I miss them.”

While students may have theories about why the treats disappeared, cafe workers Elania Cisneros and Beth Winney can correct the stories and help get to the bottom of the disappearance.

“First and foremost, the issue with the brownie bites was that they were not Smart Snack compliant,” Cisneros said. “When we had a new director come in for food service, she put the recipe into her system and it kicked it back out because it had too much sugar and too much butter.”

Students were shocked when the brownie bites were first taken off the cafe menu, and many are still upset over this sudden disappearance. A petition was started last year by Jonah Thompson, who has since graduated, with hope of bringing back the brownie bites. However, the petition was unsuccessful and brownie bites remain the absent sixth food group in the student body’s diet.

“I feel like the cafe not having brownie bites takes away a vast majority of the selection that they have,” junior Garrett Wasson said.

To be considered Smart Snack compliant, the snack in question must not exceed a set of nutrient requirements that puts limits on categories such as calories, sodium and fat, and an emphasis on some ingredients, such as whole grains. This requirement was the underlying reason for the demise of both brownie and pumpkin bites.

There has also been talk of why the brownie and pumpkin bites have been the targets of FDA regulations, and not other snacks suspicious of nutrition foul play.

“It was just the pumpkin bites and the brownie bites because they were homemade. Since everything else is packaged with whole grain, they’re Smart Snack compliant,” Cisneros said.

It seems that with heavy emphasis on Smart Snack compliance, brownie bites were doomed from the beginning. The downfall of these delicious treats was also influenced when the magic behind the bites left Center Grove.

“We did lose our baker, so that truly took it all the way. For a moment, we were serving non-Smart Snack compliant snacks, but once she left, there was no way we could make it work. They pulled it off of the menu and this is where we’re at,” Cisneros said.

With the absence of the sweet, chocolatey magic that brownie bites offered, students’ arduous school days have stretched to a painful seven hours with the lack of this sacred, mid-day blood sugar spike. Before the disappearance, brownie bites had propelled students through classes with the hope of rewarding themselves with such a mouthwatering treat. Now, the student body’s sweet tooth remains unsatisfied and ignored. New recipes have been proposed but have not yet been offered to the student body.

“They did make Smart Snack compliant brownies but they were definitely nowhere near as good. I personally tried them so I refuse to sell something I wouldn’t want to eat,” Cisneros said.

Brownie bites may be dead, but a vestige of them remains in all the students who were victims to their chocolatey temptation.