Food and Health Communications

View Original

Food News: Fast Food Audit

FastCompany.com recently published (Issue 89, Dec. 2004) an interview with the CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts, who is quoted saying they are going to work to offer better choices over the long term. This caught our attention and prompted an investigation to the nutrition facts of their current menu. Boy were we in for a few surprises. Here are the facts:• A plain bagel with light cream cheese contains 430 calories. This choice is actually more than DOUBLE the calories of a maple-frosted doughnut at 210 calories.• Many of the bagel sandwiches with meat and eggs are more than 400 calories.• The muffins must be really big because they are all 440-630 calories each! We might have been inclined to choose a pumpkin muffin had we not seen the 610 number next to it.• Beware of the chilled cream beverages – the Coffee Coolatta contains 350 calories.One rule of thumb if you are going to dine at Dunkin’ Donuts: THINK?ENGLISH?MUFFIN! The plain English muffin they serve is only 160 calories. Choose a fat-free latte, coffee or tea along with a piece of fresh fruit.FMI?see dunkindonuts.com and click on nutrition in the upper right corner.