Kvetch Sesh: D Stands for Doughnut (and Deceit)
A homemade essay that I definitely made from scratch all by myself. Any likeness to one made by a national fast food chain is pure coincidence, you've got to trust me!
What would you do if you were told a pastry was gluten-free and vegan when it wasn’t? Even worse, what if you were to offer that pastry to someone else before learning the truth? Last week John Stengel and Cindy Kay, owners of cindysnacks vegan market in Long Island, shared their experience with this very dilemma. One of cindysnacks’ regular suppliers, a (supposedly) vegan local bakery called Savory Fig, dropped off baked goods that included a suspicious doughnut.
This doughnut was decorated with “D” sprinkles and Dunkin’ Donuts coloring Stengel texted Savory Fig owner Michelle Siriani, very politely but directly, asking if it was from Dunkin’. Siriani denied this multiple times. Then cindysnacks did their due diligence—ordering the sprinkles Siriani claimed to have used and performing a gluten test on the doughnut that confirmed it contained a substantial amount of gluten—before posting their many receipts publicly to alert their customers.
After cindysnacks shared the “D” doughnut receipts internet sleuths, including myself, scrolled back to their older posts that showed previous doughnuts from Savory Fig. Pictures of Savory Fig’s Valentine’s Day-themed doughnuts sold at cindysnacks appeared to be identical to those Dunkin’ served for the holiday. These photos have since been deleted but the screenshots will live forever.
This doughnut scandal made its rounds through the vegan internet quite quickly and then it reached mainstream publications, late-night talk shows, and probably your TikTok feed. In a later Instagram update, cindysnacks disclosed that they had alerted the Suffolk County Department of Health who acknowledged that it received a report of the issue. cindysnacks seemed more focused on holding Savory Fig accountable rather than leaning into their unfortunate rise to fame.
It doesn’t appear that this scandal was unique to Savory Fig’s doughnuts, though they have seemed to remain the primary concern. Other posts and screenshots appeared to show that Savory Fig attempted to pass off Rubicon Bakers’ lemon raspberry cupcakes as her own. I was able to confirm with a trusted source (internet friend) who knows the vegan food community in that area and both businesses personally, that these questionable cupcakes are linked to Savory Fig.
This is still scummy but slightly less egregious since Rubicon Bakers does at least sell a few flavors of vegan cupcakes. Dunkin’ doughnuts, however, are all gluten-full and not vegan. The ingredients present in all Dunkin’ doughnuts—eggs, milk, and wheat—are also 3 of the 9 major allergens in the US.
The dietary aspect of veganism requires the exclusion of entire foods and food groups that are extremely common and largely remain considered fit to be the normative food options whereas vegan options are seen as alternatives. Living in a non-vegan normative world means eating outside of your home is always somewhat risky. You can only be so careful and have to rely on whatever information is available and accessible. Oftentimes the most you can do to verify ingredients, cross-contamination, or manufacturing processes is to ask someone who works for whatever company or restaurant you’re purchasing from. There are allergen-friendly food companies and third-party certifications attempting to bring more peace of mind to this concern; however, mistakes do happen and the consequences can be severe. People with allergies, many of whom were reported to be extremely diligent about investigating their food, have died from vegan labeling errors.
As someone who has always kept kosher and been vegetarian or vegan, there have been a few times in my own life when I’ve eaten something that conflicts with my dietary practices. While I’ve learned to get over it and not blame myself for these accidents, these incidents do stick with me. In middle school, I bit into a piece of pizza that looked like it was plain cheese and I pulled out a big slice of pepperoni with my first bite. It quickly ended up wadded in a napkin and angrily dumped into the trash. Many years later I was at a restaurant in my college town and, though the circumstances leading up to this have faded from my memory, I know that I ended up in a conversation with the restaurant’s owner. At some point, I must have asked something about whether any of the food items (besides the fries I was eating) could be made vegan. He joked that he could just tell me it was *wink wink* and that I didn’t have to know. Ha ha, right?
It’s a shitty feeling, even if it’s truly an accident. However, the worst outcome for me when accidentally consuming animal products, especially dairy, is that I’ll feel gross, both physically—digestive issues that won’t require medical attention—and emotionally. And then the next day, I’d be bummed out but overall fine. I cannot imagine putting my life into people’s hands every time I go to eat something I didn’t make or see made.
I was, and still am, shocked (but unfortunately, not that surprised) that someone would people’s lives at risk in such a blatantly irresponsible way. Siriani seems to have been a trusted member of the local Long Island vegan community with real experience as a baker. As of writing this, all we have is cindysnacks’ documentation and side of the story. Siriani has yet to dispute this story or provide evidence that could, even slightly, prove she baked those Dunkin’ lookalikes herself. Thankfully, I have yet to see statements by cindysnacks or their customers reporting that someone had an allergic reaction or other health issues caused by Doughnutgate 2024.
Once the initial shock of this story subsided I began thinking about if and how this would change anything. Will small vegan food business owners, whose livelihoods depend on the trust and support of their local communities, be met with suspicion? Will vendors, like cindysnacks, start to be more stringent about verifying the information they’re given about the products? Will it change how I live my life? Will I continue to eat unlabeled products, like pastries, that a person or menu tells me are vegan but that I am unable to verify? Probably. Ultimately, this becomes another aspect of the world that I move through with privilege. I have the luxury of choosing whether the information accessible about my food is good enough, even if turns out to be inaccurate, that people with allergies, intolerances, and other conditions associated with food do not.
Overall, Doughnutgate has fed my continued distrust of the term vegan, when used without context or the opportunity for verification. It has also reminded me how obfuscated our food system is and how much trust is required between consumers and manufacturers, regulators, and enforcers. This trust, and the protocol for what happens when a serious issue undermines or breaks this trust, gets tested fairly frequently. It may look like a product recall, foodborne illness outbreak, or dissatisfied customer reviews.
The main reason the FDA was initially created was to combat fraud. Before the Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was passed to prevent the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious food, drugs, medications, and liquors…” there was a complete lack of centralized oversight or regulation of these items. Until the late 1960s food labels were still minimal, except for food made specifically for special dietary uses. In 1973 FDA-regulated foods were required to disclose the number of calories, grams of macronutrients, and the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of protein, vitamins A and C, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, and iron. The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 instituted the Nutrition Facts panel and set standards for some initial nutrient content claims among many other things.
Today a lot of food laws, regulations, and enforcement exist across federal, state, and county jurisdictions. It’s a complex, messy, fallible, underfunded system, with industry interests represented way more heavily than I believe they should be, but for the most part, it works. Unfortunately, a working system does not mean a system that runs on transparency. From my observations, it seems to run on companies trying to avoid getting sued by other food companies or the public and as well as avoiding warning letters from the FDA.
While we have more oversight of our food system today than ever in history there is still so much that companies aren’t required to disclose about their manufacturing and ingredients. Gotta respect the sanctity of trade secrets! If you contact a company to ask if they use sugar that was filtered with bone char, if a wine is processed with fining agents that come from animals, or if a product labeled “may contain egg,” does or does not contain egg you learn quickly that any information beyond the bare minimum legal requirements can be difficult or impossible to find. Third-party certifications have emerged as a band-aid solution for this gap between what is legally required and what consumers may want to know. The certifications—ranging from gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, kosher, and many others—show only that a company has met the standards set by a certifying agency and paid for the ability to use that agency’s symbol on their food packaging. The burden to verify what these symbols stand for by looking through the certifier’s website and materials remains on the consumer.
When it comes to food made locally, there is both more and less opportunity for truth and transparency. A restaurant menu may say an item is vegetarian, gluten-free, or vegan but is very unlikely to provide you with a full ingredient list. At a farmers market or a food pop up you might have the opportunity to speak directly with the person who made the food and knows the ingredients and cooking process but you have little to no ability to verify their information. It all comes back to trust.
Frustratingly, in a food system where trust is so integral, and perhaps demanded of consumers, it doesn’t have to be earned. It’s expected that we trust the makers of our food until we’re given reason not to. Even when breaches of this trust can have severe, life-threatening consequences.
I wish I had advice to offer or could reveal some secret industry or regulatory truth to help you navigate the complexities of food choices. All I really can offer is my, very naive, hope that in the future our system will shift to prioritize transparency. I hope we are offered accurate, detailed information about supply chains, ingredients, and manufacturing or cooking methods rather than unregulated and unstandardized marketing claims and precautionary allergen labeling. While this wouldn’t be an instant fix or guarantee a system free from mistakes, illness, hunger, food insecurity, or scams, it would get us closer to the opportunity to make informed choices about what we consume based on what’s right for us as individuals with unique tastes, needs, and preferences.
Until then, take opportunities when and where you can to form relationships with small brands, local restaurants, farmers, and the other people who make up your food community. Respectfully ask questions, advocate for yourself and the people around you, and present other opportunities for your trust to be earned.
A fascinating read! My favorite vegan donuts in the Bay are Vegan Donut Gelato in Oakland :) Very nostalgic, like the spots I used to visit after a soccer game growing up.