Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Dunkin' Donuts is removing trans fats from menu

Oh. my. heck!! What are they thinking?? Why wreck a good thing? According to the article, Krispy Kreme is next. All hope is lost :-(

Dunkin' planned to announce Monday that it has developed an alternative cooking oil and reformulated more than 50 menu items—doughnuts included. The Canton, Mass.-based chain says its menu will be "zero grams trans fat" by Oct. 15 across its 5,400 U.S. restaurants in 34 states.

About 400 locations nationwide that took part in a four-month test already have made the switch to a new blend of palm, soybean and cottonseed oils. That includes all restaurants in New York City and Philadelphia, which are forcing restaurants to phase out their use of artery-clogging trans fat.

The ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins, another unit of Dunkin' Brands Inc., plans to be zero grams trans fat by Jan. 1.

Dunkin' isn't claiming it will become "trans fat free," but does say any trans fat in foods including doughnuts, croissants, muffins and cookies will fall below half a gram per serving. Federal regulations allow food labels to say they've got zero grams of trans fat, provided levels fall below the half-gram threshold.

[...]

But Cronin cautioned that when it comes to Dunkin's doughnuts, "we're still talking about a food that's mostly white flour, sugar, and fat."

Dunkin' isn't positioning its namesake product as health food—a shift that would involve more disbelief suspension than might be possible for a treat synonymous with portly, doughnut-gobbling Homer from television's "The Simpsons."

"The goal was not to make a healthy doughnut, it was really to create a doughnut that was better," said Joe Scafido, Dunkin's chief creative and innovation officer. "Certainly, we did not create a healthy doughnut."

[...]

Dunkin' is ahead of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc., which has yet to roll out a zero gram trans fat doughnut but hopes to do so. Brian Little, a spokesman for the North Carolina-based chain, said, "We continue to work aggressively with outside supply partners, and our goal is to get to zero trans fatty acids while maintaining great Krispy Kreme taste."

[...]

"We got no negative consumer feedback, and we sold 50 million doughnuts in that time," Scafido said.
Sorry, I'm not buying that!

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