Carbs. Deep-fried food. Sugar. Whether justified or not, all of these are under attack in our modern society. But today is a day when we punch a hole in health advice and toss such petty concerns into the circular file. It’s National Donut Day. It’s also National Doughnut Day. When it comes to fried dough coated with a firm, smooth, glossy, sugary icing, spelling doesn’t count. And calorie counting doesn’t count either. We’re celebrating the glory associated with the humans who reinvented the wheel (and covered it with glaze and sprinkles).To get the hole story on Donut Day, we have to take a trip back to front lines during WWI. But I don’t want to see your eyes glaze over. This is short and pretty interesting. “In 1917, the Salvation Army sent a group of woman to France, known as the The Salvation Army’s Donut Lassies, to establish bases near the front lines. They would bake sweet circular treats, drawing soldiers to makeshift huts by the thousands.” And it didn’t stop there. The doughnut followed US troops from World War I to D-Day and Beyond.

+ Thanks to the UK’s new food display rules, there’s a new front associated with donuts. Wired: The Doughnut Wars Are Here. “The new rules, which came into force in October 2022, ban the sale of certain foods high in fat, sugar, and salt near supermarket entrances, on the ends of aisles, or near checkouts. An ocean of prime supermarket real estate awaited anyone who could make a doughnut that avoided certain thresholds for fat, sugar, and salt. With a stroke of a legislator’s pen, the stage for the new doughnut wars was set.” (In my house, the donut wars were settled a long time ago. Bagels won.)