<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107325539963197900-search,00.html?collection=autowire%2F30day&vql_string=doughnut%3Cin%3E%28article-body%29" title="WSJ.com - Despite Best Efforts,
Doughnut Makers Must Fry, Fry Again”>Despite Best Efforts,
Doughnut Makers Must Fry, Fry Again: “Robert Ligon, a 68-year-old health-food executive, is scheduled to begin serving 15 months in a federal prison Tuesday. His crime: willfully mislabeling doughnuts as low-fat.
“Exhibit A: The label on his company’s ‘carob coated’ doughnut said it had three grams of fat and 135 calories. But an analysis by the Food and Drug Administration showed that the doughnut, glazed with chocolate, contained a sinfully indulgent 18 grams of fat and 530 calories…
“The low-fat doughnut is the Holy Grail of the food industry. Food companies have been able to take most of the fat out of everything from cheese to Twinkies. But no one has succeeded in designing a marketable doughnut that dips below the federal low-fat threshold of three grams per serving. Doughnuts typically range from eight grams of fat for a glazed French cruller to more than double that for a cake-like doughnut.
“Perhaps no other bakery good is so dependent on fat. After the batter is shaped into rings and dropped into hot oil, the deep-frying process preserves the shape, gives the doughnut a crust and pushes out moisture, allowing for the absorption of fat. The fat itself is responsible for most of its flavor. A doughnut contains as much as 25% fat; the bulk of that is the oil absorbed during frying, according to the American Institute of Baking, a research and teaching outfit funded by the baking industry.
“The low-fat doughnut, declares Len Heflich, an industry executive at the American Bakers Association, is ‘not possible.’”
