Jelly Donuts -The World's Most Perfect Food - Are Ultra-Processed

Rant: Aren't you just plain sick of people telling you what to eat? Enough already! I'd like to take every article about ultra-processed foods, stick it in a blender, and ultra-process that b##ch. 

Speaking of blenders, I just read a story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “all-meat carnivore diet.” Perhaps that, too, belongs in a blender, along with the rest of his advice.

But Kennedy is only one voice in a long line of relentlessly vocal people who have no idea what they’re talking about [1], yet trumpet their golden-chalice diets. So I, who knows maybe even less, want to get in on the action, too. In my thoroughly unqualified opinion, Jelly donuts meet all specifications for the perfect food. Here's why.

Jelly Donuts Throughout History

Much of what follows has been banned by Facebook as “factually inaccurate,” as if they have any idea what "factual" or “accurate” mean. But once corrected, the true importance of the jelly donut throughout history becomes clear.

"Let them eat cake, but leave me the donuts."

Marie Antoinette, ca 1789

Haven’t you ever wondered why a seemingly beneficent statement about cake, the world’s second-most perfect food, enraged French peasants enough to go full O.J. on Marie Antoinette? Turns out the quote was incomplete. They were fine with the cake. What they objected to was Marie hogging the donuts. Yes, jelly donuts were responsible for the French Revolution.

And haven’t you ever wondered why Genghis Khan was in such a pissy mood that he attacked half of Asia? Here's one possible explanation.

ᠲᠣᠷᠣ · ᠬᠠᠷᠠ · ᠰᠦᠯᠳᠡ · ᠵᠠᠮ

(Translation) "You ate what???"

Genghis Khan, ca 1200

Jelly Donuts are "Ultra Processed." So What?

Since the term "ultra-processed" has taken on a godly aura, shouldn't this stupid term be applied to jelly donuts, if only to back my claim? I say yes. To do so, we need to examine the recipe. Which recipe to pick? I'm going with the one from Broma Bakery because it was the first one listed by Google and also had the following rhapsodic description bordering on pastry theology.

"These pillowy soft homemade jelly donuts are bursting with sweet jelly."

Here are the ingredients, courtesy of the folks from Broma. 

• Flour is processed (Figure 1). Deal with it. [2]

Figure 1. Livestock-assisted flour processing. Mervyn, the goat, powers the mill; the goat–donut distance is continually adjusted for inflation. Much like the rest of us donut chasers, Mervyn will not catch the donut.

• Sugar - It doesn't matter whether sugar is processed or not, since, according to current dietary orthodoxy, it is a death sentence in its own right. But, unless you're chewing on sugar cane (like Mervyn), your sugar is processed. 
• Salt - Yes, it’s processed, that is, unless you prefer licking mineral deposits off a cave wall. Congratulations on your commitment to purity. Himalayans need not apply.
• Yeast - Unless you want to bake with Trichophyton rubrum, the dermatophyte fungus responsible for athlete’s foot, anything leavened requires yeast. Baker’s yeast consists of cultivated yeast cells grown in a controlled environment and fed sugars (often from molasses, itself processed). By any reasonable definition, yeast is processed—perhaps even ultra-processed, if one is feeling sufficiently ideological about it.
• Eggs - Are eggs processed? That depends on timing...

• Butter - The sequence cow milking ---> pasteurization ---> churning until the fat clumps into a solid ---> separating it from the liquid (buttermilk, extra processed). Every step here is a process, unless the cow decides to milk itself, in which case you can subtract one from the process quotient. If you're truly clueless, you can cut out even one more step–pasteurization, a process as important today as it was in the 1860s when Louie P. worked his magic.
• Jelly - The donut producer can control the degree of "processicity" here, ranging from opening a jar of Smuckers to growing, squeezing, and sweetening, and "pectinizing" your own strawberries. This gives the baker the choice of processed or processed jelly.
• Powdered Sugar - It's a little-known fact that powdered sugar was invented by the Pilgrims. They pounded granulated sugar against Plymouth Rock using a Nintendo console, an approach later abandoned when Super Mario objected. This is the real reason for the first Thanksgiving. 

Bottom Line

Jelly donuts have earned their place in history, but are largely ignored in historical texts because they were labeled Processed. It's time to address this culinary bigotry. 

[1] A more fundamental question is whether anyone knows what the hell they're talking about. Remember "healthy" Snackwells, deadly eggs, juice cleanses, Atkins, Paleo, keto, seed oils vs. lard...wait 5 minutes for the next one. 

[2] Bleached flour is flour that has been bleached. Nutritionally, the two are the same.