Dunkin Donuts Owes Me Some Trans Fats

Normally, I eat healthy foods. My default diet is mostly lacto-ovo-vegetarian since I like cheese way more than I like meat. Forget about having half of your grains be whole grains; I don't even buy non-whole grains or flours. I will often get my five servings of fruits and vegetables in before 2 p.m. Even when I don't eat healthy foods, I at least eat foods, not the processed corn-syrup laden stuff that some people try to pass off as food (word to the Velveeta fans: if the box has to tell you it is food, it isn't).

This is not to say I am a nutrition Nazi. When I am a guest somewhere, I will eat whatever is put in front of me, even if it violates my No Tentacles rule of food. More to the point, I understand that there are occasions where eating isn't about the nutrition. Sometimes, a person just needs something yummy.

Which brings me to the box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins I bought today. Those are doughnut holes for the five of you who don't live within shouting distance of a Dunkin Donuts, or are boycotting them until they reinstate all of the letters in "Doughnut." My parents used to buy PengSis and me Munchkins on occasion when I was five or so, and the availability of the chocolate ones in the university cafeteria probably played no small part in how the Freshman 15 became the Sophomore 25. I hadn't had a Munchkin in probably close to 10 years, but today, after my 15th and final trip to the home store to pick up something I needed to fix the house up for our mortgage refinance appraisal--final only because I had three hours before the appraisal--I stopped by a Dunkin Donuts to get myself a little I Survived The Appraisal treat for afterward.

So, near as I can tell, the appraisal went well, and after all I put myself through trying to make sure everything was perfect so the appraisal value will come in high enough so that this eleventh attempt at refinancing will go through. Lest you think I am exaggerating, I am not; in the past year and a half, we have tried no fewer than 10 times to refinance our mortgage, but more on that in another post. At this moment, the next possible hitch is that the house doesn't appraise out high enough. We need it to appraise for about $5,000 more than we bought it for 3 years ago, when the bubble was still inflating. After the stress of this, I decided that I deserved to retreat into some of the comfort food of my youth. Since warm cinnamon pull-apart bread and Dad's coffee cake were not viable options, I went for the doughnut holes.

As mentioned, it has been most, if not all, of a decade since I have set tooth on a Munchkin. Last time I had one, people still thought trans fats were a miracle texture-producing ingredient. Now, the box that the Munchkins come in proudly proclaims "O Grams Trans Fats."

I want the trans fats back. Here is the ingredient list for chocolate glazed Munchkins, my eternal favorite:

Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Water, Palm Oil, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil and Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil with TBHQ and Citric Acid Added to Help Protect Flavor, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Contains 2% Or Less Of The Following: Maltodextrin, Whey, Wheat Starch, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Salt, Baking Soda, Soy Lecithin, Nonfat Milk, Xanthan Gum, Modified Food Starch, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fats & Fatty Acids, Propylene Glycol, Artificial Flavor, Mono- & Diglycerides, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Egg Albumen, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Soy Flour, Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Caseinate, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), L-Cysteine Hydrochloride, Agar, Citric Acid, Cellulose Gum.

Notice something? Except for the cocoa, and the baking soda, egg albumen and nonfat milk in the "Contains 2% or less of" section, there is not a dang thing on that list that is, strictly speaking, good for you. If you were wondering, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose and Agar are both vegetarian substitutes for gelatin, and both Sodium Aluminum Phosphate and Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate are leaving agents. Propylene Glycol is used in foods as a solvent for flavorings or colorings. TBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, is a preservative. While everything in the ingredient list is edible, I would not go so far as to say that this is indicative of it being, in aggregate, food. But that's OK. I don't buy chocolate glazed Munchkins for their fiber content (incidentally, .5 gram per doughnut hole). I buy them because I want to eat something yummy.

They were yummier when they had the trans fats. Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose is also an ingredient in stucco. Agar is used as a growth medium in petri dishes. Propylene Glycol is in shampoo and deodorant. Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate is part of what puts the Tartar Control in tartar control toothpaste. A little bit of trans fat isn't the worst thing in a Munchkin.