STORY: Doughnuts can be “diet friendly”, says Greggs boss

Earlier this week, Roger Whiteside, CEO of Greggs announced (at a childhood obesity conference, no less) that the high street bakery chain will be focussing on doughnuts that are healthier.

But he did not mean reformulated. He did not mean with vegetables in. He didn’t even mean they’d be smaller. He just meant that they have holes in – so technically there’s less doughnut.

He said Greggs is placing cleaner eating habits at the “top of its corporate social responsibility agenda” by encouraging customers to eat ring-shaped doughnuts instead of round ones with jam in.

“People like big cakes, not little cakes... We know that we shouldn’t be encouraging people to eat large cakes... But the problem is you have to go with demand,” Whiteside said at the London event. “The ring doughnuts are between 200 and 300 calories, the ball doughnuts are between 300 and 400.”

Can anything be diet friendly if you put a hole in the middle so there’s less of it? Are we the only ones that think this is slightly mad?

Apparently not. Enter television presenter Piers Morgan from stage left: “All you little health warriors go ‘I'm going to have a McVegan burger for breakfast and a Greggs doughnut with a hole in it and I'm going to lose loads of weight and be healthy’”, he said on Good Morning Britain. “No, you're going to get really fat and bring your death a little bit closer.”

Get in touch with your thoughts on this please. Utter madness or good common sense?