Certain not out of the realm of possibility, but actually fresh baked products can vary a bit in nutritional content.

http://aubonpain.com/menu/raisin-bran-muffin

http://kkd-nutritional-panels.s3.amazonaws.com/ChocIcedGlazed-NEW.JPG

They're probably correct. If you're training - neither will really matter. Live a little. Eat a doughnut once in a while.

I lived a lot this morning, I ate 5.

Is it any healthier? Not really. But krispy kreme donuts are kinda gross and way too sweet for me. I would take the muffin.

Then again, what do we define as "healthy"? In the end unless you are straight up eating something that is poisoning you, nothing is really "unhealthy".

Even better!

Except a muffin freshly made from scratch would have half a dozen or a dozen ingredients you would recognize as having in your own kitchen. A krispy kreme would have 50 or more chemicals and ingredients in it that you would not have in your basic kitchen pantry, or science lab.

This is the way I look at it. I've worked on eating healthier, especially since I started triathlons, but if I eat a donut or have a few beers or cheeseburger and fries it's not going to destroy me. I've worked on improving my diet not only to help with my training but in the long term I won't be exercising 10-12 hours a week when I'm older and need a healthier diet to maintain.

My wife can eat like one Oreo or something along those lines and be happy, I'm like a crack head with sugar. I can't just do a small hit!

I did recently do a 30 day no carb no soda challenge. I ate only meat cheese and eggs and only had plain water, never cheated once in 30 days. Dropped 20lbs in those 30 days.

If you are watching your race weight, the go for fruit and a yogurt. If not, then spoil yourself once in a while

Hysterical - thanks for the laugh.

This notion that individual foods can be identified as inherently healthy and unhealthy is a bit silly. You could eat yourself to gross obesity via just fruit (which is mostly sugar, plus water, some quantity of fiber depending on the specific fruit, and a little micronutrients). There are definitely healthy and unhealthy overall diets, though, hinging on macronutrient ratios, micronutrient profiles, and calories. Fruit--but also muffins or donuts--can certainly have a place in a healthy diet.

As for the artificial/natural or processed/unprocessed heuristics, those don't get you much leverage either. That home baked, "organic" (whatever that means) brownie isn't necessarily any better than that commercially produced donut.

The language we use to talk about nutrition seems really broken to me.

This. In the end calories are calories. You can get them in various ways, and there are healthy and unhealthy ways to balance how you get them, but it's all energy in some form. A donut or muffin are pretty much the same thing. They aren't all that much different than a few pieces of fruit.

Generally the best advice is try to eat well, but don't worry *too* much about it.

I think we're basically on the same page.

That said, I'm not a fan of "calories are calories" either, there's lots of evidence that the form calories take matters. Just to cite two no-brainer examples, there are real differences between the way the body processes glucose and fructose, and the way the body processes carbs in general is affected by what else--fat, protein, fiber--is consumed with them.

What drives me nuts is the idea that fruit or oatmeal or yogurt or muffins or anything else is inherently healthy, which people seem to interpret as a green light to consume as much of that as they like. Or that somehow eliminating "chemicals" from your diet is sufficient for health (it's *all* chemicals, we're all chemicals, and whether a particular chemical is of organic or synthetic origin tells you very little about its health benefits).

End of rant. :)

The muffin probably has more calories, sugar, and fat than the Krispy Kreme. KKs only have 200cals (mostly due to their small size). That's less than a Powerbar, 50 less than a Snickers, and ~150 less than most muffins at Starbucks. If it was an either/or, go with the doughnut.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Yeah, with more than 50 ingredients for a doughnut, not bad at all. Fungal alpha amylase. Sounds yummy.

Enriched bleached wheat flour- (contains bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), dextrose, vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil), water, sugar, soy flour, egg yolks, vital wheat gluten, yeast, nonfat milk, yeast nutrients (calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate), dough conditioners (calcium dioxide, monocalcium and dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, sodium stearoyl-2-lacrylate, whey, starch, ascorbic acid, sodium bicarbonate, calcium carbonate), salt, mono-and-diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, lecithin, calcium propionate (to retain freshness), cellulose gum, natural and artificial flavors, fungal alpha amylase, amylase, maltogenic amylase, pantosenase, protease, sodium caseinate, corn maltodextrin, corn syrup solids and BHT (to help protect flavor).Glaze also may contain: Calcium carbonate, agar, locust bean gum, disodium phosphate, and sorbitan monostearate.

If you want a doughnut, go to a local shop; they probably aren't making doughnuts with more than 50 ingredients.

Yeah, but most of the local shops use fluoridated dihydrogen monoxide in their doughnuts.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Let me guess, you get your nutrition advice from the Food Babe, don't you?

What do you think the ingredient list for a piece of fruit would look like? See for yourself: http://img.wonderhowto.com/...5260912888585950.jpg

I mix fluoridated dihydrogen monoxide with a little Skratch when I ride. Someone told me once it makes you faster. You can buy it in bulk at Costco.

Skratch is available at Costco? That's great to know.

I like Skratch, but I'm not yet persuaded it's inherently superior to more mainstream alternatives that are less "natural" (whatever that means). Of course, whether it's superior or not might just have to do with its particular formulation, not whether it contains particular artificial flavors and colors.

I think it's the dihydrogen monoxide that Costco sells in bulk, not Skratch.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

I recently discovered KC fruit pies. The list of ingredients is intimidating but only half the size and calories of the old hostess fruit pies and taste better. So yeah I ate 2. But I did a long run an hour later so Saul Goodman.

Well some of us have Krispy Kreme donut shops locally. And they make the donuts fresh from fairly basic ingredients. They also taste much better than the cake donut boxed versions that are at the grocery store.

That bores me more than the water comment

unless baked, donuts are fried, where the oil changes to synthetic type fats that the body cant recognized to break down. So these fats just collect in your body.... and you dont need to look obese to have clogged arteries. you may be fast and thin person now... but what happens in 5,10 years? My father was thin and had 3 heart attacks...


As Muffins from commercial places also can have this fat. your best bet is a local bakery that uses butter and no soy products.