Image by Michael Persico

To the untrained eye, bagels and donuts can seem virtually identical. Take, for example, their common circular shape, or the hole in the middle, or the way they’re both sold by the dozen. But beneath these superficial similarities, donuts and bagels are actually quite different. Take it from us – we’re donut experts. And now, thanks to this handy guide, you’ll never again order lox and cream cheese on a cruller.

Eat Donuts For Health

Nutritionally speaking, both donuts and bagels are loaded with all the calories, carbohydrates, and gluten you need to carry you from one blood sugar peak to the next. But only donuts are loaded with refined sugar or those heroically higher highs and ludicrously lower lows. ADVANTAGE: DONUTS

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

You could eat a different donut every day for a year and never repeat yourself. (In fact this is the subject for our next book: “A Donut a Day: The Unlikely Fountain of Youth – A Rux Martin Book.”) There are yeast donuts, cake donuts, and even potato donuts; crullers and old-fashioned donuts; long johns and fritters; plain donuts and donuts that are filled, glazed, sugared, and powdered. The list of fillings and toppings is infinite. There are only four recognized bagels: sesame, poppy, onion, and pumpernickel. Everything bagels are a mere repackaging. Salt, egg, and whole wheat bagels are a minor footnote to the definitive scholarship. And no, to address the elephant in the room, cinnamon raisin –not a bagel. Ditto for blueberry and chocolate chip. And while we’re at it, please stop with the strawberry cream cheese –that belongs on a donut. ADVANTAGE: DONUTS

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Perfect For Any Occasion

To show our complete objectivity and absolute commitment to the truth, we will stipulate that bagels do make an ideal brunch. And bagels are the third biblical requirement for a bris (the others being a male Jewish baby and a sharp knife). But beyond that, we’re hard pressed to think of an occasion for which donuts are not a better option. Bagels on Fat Tuesday are weird and awkward. Likewise on National Donut Day. Donuts, on the other hand, are perfect for both. And donuts even make a spectacular alternative to a wedding cake. Marriages that are consummated with a bagel wedding cake end in divorce. ADVANTAGE: DONUTS

In summary, while both bagels and donuts pair well with coffee, you know you want the donut.

Text Excerpt from “Federal Donuts” Copyright © 2017 by Mike Solomonov and Steve Cook. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

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