Reged: 12/13/04
Posts: 4490
Loc: West Orange, NJ (IBS-D)
The problem with chocolate chips is twofold: First, they almost always have dairy. I found dairy-free ones - I bought Ghiradelli brand but I'm pretty sure some people have posted that they've found store brands that are dairy free. The Ghiradelli package says, "May contain trace amounts of dairy" but my understanding is that since no dairy shows up in the list of ingredients that's just a warning because the chips are made on equipment that also makes dairy.
Second - and this there is no way to get around - chocolate chips are high in fat. My Ghiradelli chips get more than 50% of calories from fat. Once you put them in the chocolate chip cookie recipes the percent for the whole recipe is less than that, of course, but my guess is that these cookies are still on the high side as far as fat is concerned (I haven't done the math). This means that - like a lot of the desserts on the Recipe Board - they should be eaten in reasonable quantities (ROFL) after a low-fat high SF meal.
The same rules hold true for candy bars, chocolate bars, and ice cream - if you can find ones that don't contain any triggers like dairy or egg yolks you can handle their high fat content provided you eat a little of them after a low-fat high SF meal.
HTH.
-------------------- [Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]