Posted on 08/26/2007 1:56:08 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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.
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
The company's numbers illustrate one of the General Principles of Dunkin' Donuts Differences: cake is worse than yeast. Yeast doughnuts range from 170 to 270 calories and three to six grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. In contrast, cake doughnuts range from 290 to 360 calories and seven to 10 grams of bad fat.
At Dunkin', the Glazed and Sugar Raised yeast doughnuts leave you with only three grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. That's half what you'd get from Krispy Kreme's Original Glazed or Sugar Coated doughnuts. (Don't use that as an excuse to have two.) Dunkin's Apple N' Spice doughnuts also keep the bad fat to three grams. But it's not because all those apples leave less room for fat. The doughnuts have more yeast than apple.
The Frosted yeast doughnuts--Chocolate, Marble, Strawberry, and Maple--are still on the lowish side, with four grams of heart trouble and roughly 200 calories. But the frosting lifts the sugar to about three teaspoons' worth.
The bad fat inches up to five grams in the Crumb doughnuts. Dunkin' springs for real apples in the Apple Crumb, but it must have gotten a good deal on strawberry puree, because that's the only berry in the Blueberry Crumb. Nothing that a little Red #40, Yellow #6, and Blue #1 food dye can't take care of.
"Kreme" doughnuts are filled with partially hydrogenated oils, sugar, gums, and artificial flavor rather than cream, but that's not exactly good news. Each Chocolate or Vanilla Kreme Filled will run you 270 calories, six grams of artery-lining fat, and four teaspoons of sugar.
Still, those numbers look good next to the cake doughnuts. The "best" cake (Chocolate Glazed) is worse than the worst yeast (Vanilla Kreme Filled). Even a plain Old Fashioned Cake has 300 calories and half a day's bad fat. It's a good way to get ready for an Old Fashioned Heart Attack. In the Glazed version, the sugar climbs to five teaspoons and the calories to 350.
Among the worst cake doughnuts is the Cinnamon Cake. Its 10 grams of heart-stopping fat are more than twice what you'd get in a Chocolate Frosted yeast doughnut.
Too bad Dunkin' doesn't put those numbers up on its menu board. Instead, it's got a deal for you: one doughnut will cost you around 75 cents, but you can get a dozen for about 30 cents each. Krispy Kreme has a similar incentive to weaken your willpower. And the variety--you can mix and match most flavors--entices people to keep eating.
There are Dunkin' Donuts in Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and a few dozen other countries. And you can find Krispy Kreme in Asia, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, and Eastern and Western Europe.
Doughnuts are a worldwide phenomenon. So are obesity and heart disease.
In a trans
Most doughnuts have two to five grams of trans fat--plus another two to five grams of saturated fat. That's 20 to 50 percent of a day's worth of bad fat (20 grams). Here's how doughnuts (in bold) stack up against some other foods.
Just remember: Eating more than one Cinnabon is tough. Eating more than one doughnut is easy...
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Since losing most of my excess weight in 2003, I haven't had a single donut. I might have donuts in moderation if only they didn't make them with hydrogenated oils (trans-fats). Maybe someday, a donut maker will see the light and eliminate hydrogenated oils from the process.
It delivers flee doughnuts to local leaders, charities, and reporters as it moves into a community.
If the doughnuts have “flees” I hope they aren’t charging money for them. That just wouldn’t be right!
Donuts are something to have occasionally. A little hydrogenated oil isn’t going to kill you. It is eating the stuff everyday that does that.
Ditto for fried clams. I used to eat fried clams by the bucket. But no more. Nothing but steamers for me. In fact, I just had a bucket of steamers yesterday with dripping (real) butter and a couple pints of beer. Not a gram of trans fat in any of that.
I do miss the fried clams though. They used to give me that "full" feeling.
It's a shame that Dunkin Donuts doesn't even have one donut that's made without trans-fats, or I'd have one from time to time. I'm in a Dunkin Donuts pretty much every day but all I can ever get there except my daily cup of coffee is their low-carb bagel (which is quite good).
Tim Hortons is the best.
Their coffee is anyway.
And the turkey/bacon club sandwiches are to die for.
Mmmmmmm. Doughnuts!
Teaspoon of pancake batter + air injection extruder + boiling transfats = a pretty lousy doughnut . . . Krispy Kreme
Skip the chains and find a mom and pop bakery. I found one that makes a maple twist and the flavor comes from real maple syrup. It is a cake not a yeast and they use lard rather then shortening. Yummy beyond belief.
I grew up on Fried Clams. Nothing quite like them. Choice between lobster and fried clams? The clams win every time. When next I go to New England I will have my fix -— but it will be just that -— a fix. Steamers are a second best, but no less loved.
Nutrition info:
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/nutrition/
http://www.krispykreme.com/doughnuts.pdf
For the “health-conscious”, Krispy Kreme has Glazed Whole Wheat and Multigrain Cake doughnuts.
But seriously, you’d get artery-clogging ingredients at a fancy French bakery, too.
My wife and I love Dunkin Donuts. Fortunately there are none nearby!
It is a cake not a yeast and they use lard rather then shortening.
Is it just my imagination or were people healthier and thinner when we still cooked with lard? I seem to remember most people being satisfied with a small or medium order of fries.
Dunkin Donuts whole menu going zero grams trans fat by mid October -- even the doughnuts! Developing....
You may get your wish!!!
That last pic isn’t funny. It’s sad. Why am I laughing?
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