Wendyl Wants To Know: What's in these? Good luck trying to find out

White Choc Round Donut Sprinkles - $3.99 for 13 donuts. Photo / Wendyl Nissen

Ingredients list is confusing but Brits require warning labels for colours.

I can see someone buying these colourful doughnuts for children to eat at a birthday party or for a treat. Who doesn't like doughnuts?

But if you were at all interested in finding out what is in them ... good luck. This package in Pak'nSave had two different labels, one for White Choc Round Donut Sprinkles and one for Mini Choc Donuts.

Both ingredients labels had conflicting information. In the end, I went for the label on the front rather than the label on the side, even though the doughnuts in the packet did not seem to have any "white choc" on them.

Instead, they had different-coloured icing, from chocolate to pink and green, and lots of multi-coloured sprinkles.

I do wish supermarkets would be more responsible and at least give their beloved customers a fighting chance of deciphering what they are eating. By having two different labels, one quite illegible, they show a blatant disregard and lack of respect for their loyal customers.

Ingredients ( in order of greatest quantity first)

Wheat flour
This is the main ingredient of doughnuts.

Vegetable fat
Not sure what oil is in here.

Compound chocolate (8%) (sugar, vegetable fat, cocoa powder (16%), milk blend (skim/whole) milk solids, emulsifiers (322,492), flavour) (18%)
These are fairly standard ingredients for chocolate, although good chocolate does not have vegetable oil. There is also artificial flavour, and the emulsifiers are lecithin (322) and sorbitan tristearate (492), which is produced by the esterification of sorbitol with commercial stearic acid derived from food fats and oils.

Water

Rainbow sprinkles (sugar, wheatstarch, vegetable fat, soy lecithin, colour (102, 110, 122, 124, 133) (0.05%)
The artificial colours used in these sprinkles are Tartrazine (102), Sunset Yellow (110), Carmoisine (122), Ponceau 4R (124). These four colours have been voluntarily phased out by food producers in the UK, and any producers who continue to use these artificial colours must put a warning on their labels which says "may have effects on activity and attention in children". Brilliant Blue (133) can cause allergic reactions in asthmatics and has been banned in many countries.

Dextrose
This is a form of sugar. According to one of the labels on this package you will get 8g of sugar which is two teaspoons per 25g doughnut.

Vegetable oil
Not sure what oil is in here.

Yeast
This will be the primary raising agent for the doughnuts.

Egg

Salt
You'll get 122 mg of sodium per 25g.

Aerator (450, 500)
These are diphosphates (450) which are salts of phosphoric acid and baking soda (500).

Soy flour
This might be in here for texture.

Milk powder

Emulsifier (471, 481, 322)
These are mono and diglycerides of fatty acids (471) which are produced primarily from soya bean oil. Sodium lactylate (481) is a sodium salt and lecithin (322) is a natural emulsifier.

Flavour
This will be artificial flavouring.

Vegetable shortening

Enzyme
This is added into baked goods to improve the quality.

Colour (102)
More artificial flavour tartrazine (102) as above. This colour will be in the doughnuts to give them a yellow colour.

My recommendations

Instead of choosing these coloured doughnuts take a step to the right or left and select the doughnuts without icing and sprinkles.

A regular doughnut will taste just as good and you will be ingesting only one artificial colour instead of five.

And you'll save some money.

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