Archive for the ‘ingredients’ Category

Gluten

Monday, March 30th, 2009

There is a rumor floating around that we make gluten-free donuts. This is not true: while our donuts are egg- and dairy-free and made with organic ingredients, we just don’t have the facilities to make gluten-free donuts. The problem is that we are such a small shop: we only have one bakery and one set of equipment, and we use wheat in our bakery. To make donuts truly gluten-free, we would need to use entirely different equipment than we use for our gluten-full donuts, in a separate room where there isn’t any gluten dust floating around in the air. For the sake of all the people out there with gluten intolerances, we wish we could make a donut without gluten. But being a small, locally-owned, friendly neighborhood donut shop, we just don’t have the facilities to do it.

For further information, here is a complete list of our ingredients and nutrition information.

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Mighty-O Peanut Safety

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

You might have seen on the news that we have recalled our Nutty Vanilla donuts made before February 5, 2009. If not, you can read the official press release. The press release explains that this was entirely a precautionary measure, and that no cases of salmonella have been linked to our donuts, but it doesn’t go into much detail about how we know our donuts are safe.

Our supplier recalled some of their peanuts, but they did not actually recall the peanuts that Mighty-O buys. However, we thought it best, out of caution, to go ahead and throw out all the peanuts we had from that supplier and to recall the donuts that had those peanuts on them. Our supplier now gets their peanuts from an entirely different source that is in no way affiliated with the Peanut Corporation of America. To be extra safe, our supplier is having all of their new peanuts sent to a third-party lab to test for salmonella: they will not ship out any peanuts until they have confirmation that they are safe.

So what does this mean for our customers? It means your peanut-topped Mighty-O donuts are safe and were always safe. It means that from now on, our peanuts will be rigorously tested to make sure they are safe. You can enjoy your favorite peanutty donuts free of worry.

We are concerned about what we and our customers put in our bodies. We do everything we can to ensure our ingredients are as safe and clean as they can possibly be. Our voluntary participation in the donut recall was entirely a precautionary measure to assure our customers that our donuts are always made of the finest ingredients.

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Palm Oil and the Rainforest

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

At Mighty-O, we use sustainable organic palm fruit oil. This oil, extracted from the fruit of palm trees, has been used for thousands of years. Palm oil has become very popular in this country over the past few years because of increased concerns about the unhealthy effects of hydrogenated oils and trans fats. Palm fruit oil is naturally trans-fat free, cholesterol free, high in beta-carotene and vitamin E, and has other health benefits.

Naturally, not all palm fruit oil is organic and sustainable. Conventional palm fruit oil has negative environmental impacts. Palm trees grow in tropical climates, and the increasing demand for palm fruit oil has led to extensive deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea as they clear the forests to make room for palm oil plantations.

In response, some companies are standing up against this deforestation. In October of 2008, thirty food, cosmetic, and consumer good companies and one palm oil supplier signed a pledge to support a moratorium on the expansion of palm oil plantations into rainforests. At Mighty-O, we have always used organic palm oil grown in South America. Last year, we developed a relationship with the one supplier who has signed the moratorium: Ciranda. Ciranda gets their palm oil through AgroPalma, a palm oil cultivating and processing company which is not only organic-certified, but also socially responsible. They sell land to farmers at low rates, teach the farmers to grow and harvest palm trees in environmentally sustainable ways, provide agricultural tools and equipment, provide schools and public transportation, and pay the farmers fair wages.

So next time you take a bite of a Mighty-O donut you’ll know that in addition to the desire to make a delicious treat we are equally concerned with conscious buying practices that do not contribute to harming rain forests, exploiting tropical laborers, and create long-term negative consequences for the environment.

If you want more information about Palm Fruit Oil and its environmental consequences, here are some links:

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