Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Don't Nut

Someone over at Tim Hortons clearly has a direct line to the fact that most people break their New Years resolution to lose weight fairly quickly into the month of January.

What could be better than the low tech Wheel of Donuts. It invites you to spin the arrow and purchase, for the low, low price of 49¢, a little ball of heavenly dough. It's certainly a damn sight better than chasing another brown and soggy lettuce leaf around the plate for another day.

See, they even almost got me. And I'm not even trying to lose weight.

So after hearing the siren song of the new Apple Fritter stuffed with apples and caramel, I took a little trip online to check out the nutritional information of some of these tasty treats.

Word to the wise. If you love something. Truly love it. Can't live without it. Don't bother looking up the nutritional information. It will never be the same to you again.

But if you're prepared to have your world collapse around you, you might be surprised to learn a few things. Like, what has more calories -- an apple fritter or a raisin tea biscuit? Cue Jeopardy music.

I might guess the tea biscuit is the healthier choice but they're nearly identical in calories -- 300 for the fritter and 290 for the tea biscuit. Shocking, especially since I'd be tempted to slather the tea biscuit in strawberry jam and pretend I'm British. But wait for it -- the tea biscuit has 590 mg of sodium. That's not a treat, it's a salt lick.

Tim Bits are slightly better on the gluttony front, providing you exercise a little self control.

A single old-fashioned plain timbit is about 70 calories, while an old-fashioned donut is 260. How many times have you crammed half a dozen timbits into your cake hole when you'd never, ever consider eating a whole donut?

Then there's the chili -- a popular choice among my colleagues. It has 1320 mg of sodium in a bowl. The recommended daily intake of sodium for adults between 9 and 50, is 1500 mg.

Forget The Wheel of Donuts. I think Timmies might be on to something. Wheel of Hypertension! I'll have my marketing people call their marketing people.

2 comments:

Blodwynn said...

Now if they only made tree bark flavoured donuts. (don't tell Tori)

Hez said...

Holy crap! I had NO idea the raisin tea biscuit was that high in calories and sodium... I did, however, know that the Wheat and Carrot muffin is higher in calories than the Chocolate Chip muffin. Shocking!

By the way, I read your blog to Andrew. His response? "Hun, we may have to get a divorce so I can marry the caramel stuffed apple fritter".

I think the rest of your post was lost on him.