Health Article

As I sit here drinking my medium french vanilla iced coffee (with milk & sugar!), I realize that Dunkin' Donuts has come a long way concering nutrition.  And THANK GOODNESS, it sure took them long enough.

One of my biggest qualms with good ol' Dunks was that if you were hungry, there wasn't anything healthy as an option!  You had to work with what they gave you: the lowest-fat donut you can think of, bran muffin perhaps, or trying your wheat bagel with low fat cream cheese.  Still, these weren't the best choices..

Then recently they came out with their new Egg White Flatbread Sandwiches.  I feel as though I should have gotten on my knees and thanked the Dunkins God.  Both the Turkey Sausage and Veggie flatbreads are under 300 calories, and are filled with veggies and sandwiched between multigrain bread.  Before they came out, I had tried one of their other flatbread sandwiches and was disappointed, which should have been no surprise because, come on, it's Dunkin' Donuts.  But then I tried the Turkey Sausage and it was fantastic.  I mean really, it actually tasted like an omelet!

There's still a lot more sodium than is probably desirable in either, but when you're on the run (and want your coffee to go with it), it's definitely a much better choice.  Combined with their new DD Smart labels, which indicate the healthier options on the menu, Dunkin' Donuts is finally making strides in our heath-conscious, obesity-combatting world.

Now, I realize all of us might not like the flatbreads, or still want to have their donuts and eat them too.  So here are some tips for eating the healthiest way you can at Dunkin' Donuts!

* * * * *

Get coffee with skim (or regular) milk and sugar or Splenda!
I'll admit it, I DON'T like skim milk in my coffee.  And I like my "crunchy coffee" with sugar in the bottom.  But getting my coffee with milk and sugar instead of with cream actually saves a lot more calories than you'd expect: 120 calories and 6 grams of fat compared with 80 calories and 1 gram of fat in a small iced coffee.  Skim milk and sugar runs you only 70 calories and 0 grams of fat (and makes you a better person than I for liking skim milk!)  Switching your coffee up like this can save you a LOT of daily calories, but if you're just a creature of habit and like your cream, make sure you think of it like having a snack, and factor it in to your daily calorie intake.

STAY AWAY FROM THE MUFFINS
Honestly, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking muffins are healthier than donuts, but that is a myth!  Take a chocolate chip muffin at Dunkin's: 630 calories and 26 grams of fat.  Yikes!  Their new reduced fat blueberry muffin is a little better at 400 calories and 5 grams fat, but just be weary of the muffins in the future.  And of course, if we're talking about eating only a muffin for breakfast, it DOES fall in the normal range of 400-500 calories for a breakfast.  Unfortunately, at least for me, muffins don't fill me up, and I would end up eating more food in a couple hours!

Don't feel the need to use the ENTIRE container of cream cheese.
Ah yes, the bagels, my weakness.  Just like muffins, bagels aren't going to break the bank on your diet if you have them for breakfast and that's it.  Surprisingly though, the multigrain bagel isn't necessarily the healthiest bagel of the bunch: with 380 calories and 6 grams of fat, the blueberry, wheat, cinnamon raisin, salt, onion, and plain bagels actually have only 330 calories or less, and with less fat.  Of course, I'm neglecting the other nutrition facts such as protein, sugar, and vitamins, but if you're counting calories those are the hard facts.  As far as the cream cheese goes, the regular reduced fat is definitely the best with 120 calories per unit or 57 grams.  Now I'm not sure how much of that is the whole container, but you don't need to eat it all!  If they put on the cream cheese for you, I find that it's usually WAY too much.  Ask for it on the side, and then you can apply as little (or as much, I guess) as you want.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="367" caption="French Cruller"][/caption]

Key to Donuts: The plainer, the better
Nothing filled, glazed, or with cream is going to be the best choice.  The winner is the french crullers with only 150 calories and 8 grams of fat, but I bet you smarty pants knew that because they are so light and fluffy!  The next best choices are your sugar raised donuts (but what are those?!) and your simple chocolate frosted, at 210 calories, 10 grams fat, and 230 calories, 11 grams fat respectively.  For munchkins?  The serving size is 4.

Yes, you CAN drink coolatas!  But beware the smoothies!
I just discovered that a coffee coolata made with skim milk is only 170 calories with 0 grams fat!  Hooray!  That's still about as many calories as a snack, but at least you can fit it in there. =)  The rest of the coolatas are a bit worse for your health, and watch out for those smoothies!  A small Strawberry Banana is 350 calories.  True, it only has 2 grams of fat, but that's a pretty calorie-filled drink.

* * * * *

If you made it through all of this, I'm seriously impressed.  But what do you guys think, what are your favorite Dunkins snacks?  Also, if you want their nutrition facts for the rest of their food, just check out their website here.