I don't, but at the other extreme a man named John Haight ate 29 donuts in just over six minutes back in 1981 to claim the Guinness World Record for donut eating. It makes you wonder if he could have eaten the worlds largest donut. It was an American-style jelly donut made in Utica, New York on January 21, 1993 that weighed 1.7 tons and was 16 feet in diameter - if not the donut, maybe he could have finished the hole or the jelly? Here is a whimsical page with a dozen interesting facts about donuts.
Donuts are ingrained in North American popular culture with TV characters like Homer Simpson satirizing your typical donut lover. Police are often ridiculed for hanging out at donut shops a lot, but it's probably not a fair rap since they may be the only restaurants open on late night shifts, and of course in a parking lot most people will spot the cruiser. There's a Tim Horton's donut shop across the street from a hospital in our city that is swarmed by health care workers on evening and night shifts. You might predict that many romances between cops and nurses began over the odd jelly sprinkled donut. Legend has it that dunking donuts first caught on when actress Mae Murray accidentally dropped a donut into her coffee while dining at Lindy's Deli on Broadway in New York City.
How relevant are donuts to the economics of society? It's claimed that in the United States there are over 10 billion donuts made every year - somewhat amazing for a sugary product that has little or no nutritional value. Some economists claim that you can judge the health of the economy by looking at the size of the hole in a donut. The hole is smaller when times are good because more dough is used. Could the shape have some universal appeal as a symbol - a circle - an empty hole - complete - but incomplete all at the same time? It certainly is a numerical symbol as shown by the Donut Abacus, although the donuts are often plastic in that case. In terms of economics, I'd like to see the former Billionaires at Krispy Kreme weigh in here.
6 comments:
Unfortunately for the guys at KK they are no longer billionares. Said this, your analogy may be correct concerning the size of the hole. With corporate america forcing more and more botique doughnut shops out of business we may be able to gauge their earnings by the size of the hole.
We have another way to predict the future. The economy follows the hemline of a woman's skirt.
May times always be good!
but the donut at my school has a bigger hole than the one 2 km away from my home! and i'm quite sure they're different from dunkin donuts too...so how's the economy at my place? :P
It still boggles my mind travel italy that there are or were donut billionaires.
If donut hole sizes vary across a city or from store to store liuhua, then maybe it speaks to how well each store is doing rather than the general economy. I think I'll stick to the stores with the smallest donut holes!
I'm going to try an find out if there actually was a specific economist who came up with the donut hole size observation michaelm, or whether it's just an urban legend or tidbit of donut humor.
Nice blog!
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