If You Must Have a Doughnut, Keep It Simple

When it comes to doughnuts, we are a nation of Homer Simpsons. No matter how often the fried rolls are declared nutritionally bankrupt, their sweet, oily fragrance is overwhelming. Americans eat about 10 billion doughnuts each year, or about 40 for every man, woman and child in the country, according to industry estimates.

The fried snacks are most likely descended from the Dutch olie-kochen, or fried cakes, which arrived on these shores with Dutch settlers in the 1640s. A sea captain from Rockport, Maine, named Hanson Gregory claims credit for punching the first holes in the cakes, in 1847, to get rid of the doughy middle. By the 1920s the first doughnut-making machines had turned a kitchen craft into a growing industry.

No one mistakes a doughnut for health food. The combination of flour, sugar and fat contains very little fiber, so its 200 to 300 calories are absorbed quickly, said Randi Konikoff, a dietitian at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston.

The body converts the simple carbohydrates in doughnuts to sugar, which prompts the release of insulin; insulin in turn converts excess sugar to body fat. And all that’s on top of the large dose of dietary fat in the snacks themselves.

At their best, doughnuts are light pastries rather than heavy gut bombs. Dipped briefly in hot oil, the sculpted dough develops a delicate crispy skin. The moisture trapped within turns to steam, cooking the dough inside, said Ralph Primo, who with wife Celia founded Primo’s doughnuts in West Los Angeles, in 1956.

In a well-made doughnut, the oil does not penetrate far into the pastry, he said. When sprayed with a film of liquefied sugar, a simple ring of yeast-raised dough becomes one of the most popular breakfast foods in the nation: the simple glazed doughnut.

Of course, there are dozens of varieties, and each carries a different package of calories and fat. Besides the simple glazed, top-sellers include the chocolate-frosted cake doughnut, the jelly-filled and the old-fashioned.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, the heaviest of these is the chocolate-frosted cake, which has 16 grams of fat and 300 calories, according to the company.

At Krispy Kreme, the glazed devil’s food old-fashioned leads with 24 grams of fat and 390 calories, while the chocolate frosted cake comes in at 13 grams and 270 calories.

A jelly-filled falls somewhere in the middle, from 8 grams of fat and 210 calories (Dunkin’ Donuts) to 14 grams and 290 calories (Krispy Kreme). Any one of these doughnuts provides roughly 20% of USDA’s recommended allowance for fat, and 15% of the day’s allowance for calories.

In a recent analysis, Tufts University researchers found that many blueberry muffins--including so-called low-fat varieties--had more fat and calories than a glazed doughnut. Even eating three of the little, fried doughnut holes can put you over the fat and calorie count for a full-sized glazed, because of the amount of fried surface area, Konikoff said.

“Most people have no idea,” she said. “They think three of those little things only equals about a half a doughnut.”

In the end, the lightest selection often is the most popular: the simple glazed, or raised, doughnut, which has about 200 calories and 8 to 11 grams of fat.