The hole truth: what you don't know about doughnuts - Brand-Name Rating

Nutrition Action Healthletter, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Jayne Hurley, Bonnie Liebman

The "hot doughnut experience." That's the difference between Krispy Kreme and other large doughnut chains. Dunkin' Donuts may be bigger (at least in the East), but nothing stirs the soul like the neon "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign that lights up when Krispy Kreme's famous Original Glazeds come rolling off the line.

If you've ever had a doughnut hot out of the fryer, you know how tough it is to stop at just one. Just what we need: an irresistible food that's made of sugarcoated white flour fried in trans-fat-laden oil.

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Doughnuts are a phenomenon. Fortune magazine recently named the rapidly expanding Krispy Kreme "America's Hottest Brand." The company racked up two billion media mentions in 2002, according to Amy Joyner, coauthor of Making Dough: The 12 Secret Ingredients of" Krispy Kreme's Sweet Success (Wiley, 2003).

It's not just taste. It's not just the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign, which works as a "strong impulse purchase generator." And it's not just what Krispy Kreme calls "doughnut theater"--the "multi-sensory experience" that engulfs customers as they watch the doughnuts come off the assembly line.

Krispy Kreme has a brilliant marketing strategy. It delivers flee doughnuts to local leaders, charities, and reporters as it moves into a community. And the media, in turn, fuel the Krispy Kreme craze.

"When a store comes to town--any town--it's treated like a news event, from the time its plans pass the zoning board to its meticulously razzmatazzed grand opening," writes Jill Rosen in the October/November 2003 American Journalism Review.

Surprisingly, Krispy Kreme's success isn't hurting its competitors. "It's created an awareness for the category, and we're benefiting," Dunkin' Donuts CEO Jon Luther told Newsweek magazine in September.

The competition doesn't hurt in part because each chain attracts a different clientele. Commuters stop at Dunkin' Donuts on their way to work, while customers visit Krispy Kreme for a splurge. (They can buy the identical KK doughnuts at the supermarket.)

Meanwhile, Tim Hortons, Canada's top doughnut chain, has started to make its way across the border. Which raises the question: are we poised to follow our neighbors to the north, who consume more doughnuts per capita than any other nation on earth?

And what will our growing fondness for doughnuts do to our insides and backsides? To find out, we looked at the calories, saturated fat, trans fat, and sugar in the most popular doughnuts from the two leading chains. (Most numbers came from the companies; we analyzed the percentage of trans in the doughnuts' fat.)

If doughnuts hold a warm place in your heart, read on: not all doughnuts are created equal. Some are twice as damaging as others.

KRISPY KREME

The good news: the most popular doughnut at Krispy Kreme, the Original Glazed, isn't as bad as most of the chain's other doughnuts. The bad news: they're so light and airy that stopping after only one ain't easy.

It's not the 200 calories that'll get you (though 200 times two, three, or four sure might). It's the six grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. That's nearly a third of a day's worth of bad fat in every ring. It's like eating a slice of white bread smeared with a tablespoon of lard (plus a tablespoon of jelly).

A Sugar Coated or Glazed Cinnamon--or Glazed or Cinnamon Twist--will do about the same damage. Even the Chocolate Iced looks the same to your arteries. (The chocolate icing is mostly sugar, so it adds about 50 calories, but no more fat.)

What pumps up the calories, fat, and sugar in Krispy Kreme's filled doughnuts? They're heavier. Krispy offers more than a dozen varieties that do away with the doughnut's healthiest feature: its calorie-free, fat-free hole.

Filled yeast doughnuts--including New York Cheesecake, Chocolate Malted Kreme, Caramel Kreme Crunch, Key Lime Pie, and Chocolate Iced Creme Filled--pack 300 to 390 calories and eight to ten grams of harmful fat. Some weigh nearly twice as much as an Original Glazed. Eating one is like having a nine-ounce filet mignon to tide you over until lunch.

Experienced consumers know better than to expect actual fruit in a fruit-filled doughnut. At Krispy Kreme, though, you never know. You get apples in the Cinnamon Apple Filled, but no raspberries in any of the Raspberries. To Krispy, "raspberry" means sugar, gums, artificial flavor, and a finely tuned mix of Red #40 and Blue #1 food coloring.

And the Glazed Blueberry (cake) doughnut uses nothing but corn cereal, corn syrup, and enough Blue #2, Red #40, Blue #1, and Green #3 to make "blueberry gumbits." Yum.

The blueberries may be missing, but the calories aren't. Whether it's Blueberry, Sour Cream, or Devil's Food, each Glazed cake doughnut packs 340 calories, seven teaspoons of corn syrup, and half a day's artery-clogging fat--nearly twice what you'd get in an Original Glazed. That's because glazed cake doughnuts--despite their holes--weigh as much as most filled doughnuts.

DUNKIN' DONUTS

Dunkin' Donuts is big in the East. In Massachusetts, they say that the best way to get someone lost is to tell them to turn left at the Dunkin' Donuts.