"Healthy Choice" at Tim Hortons?

In the last few months, M and I have been trying to eat healthier. We have also been travelling a bit, and I have found that healthy eating on the go is nearly impossible.

Recently, we found ourselves hungry for a snack, standing at a Tim Hortons trying to figure out what to order.


The display case was full of doughnuts and muffins. M automatically assumed a muffin would be healthier than a doughnut. Having worked at McDonalds at the past and well aware of how unhealthy the muffins there are, we checked out the nutrition information to find out:

As it turns out, doughnuts range from 210 - 360 calories and have 8-23 g of fat, while muffins have 290 - 430 calories and 2.5 (for the low fat options) to 19 g of fat!

That means even the low-fat muffins have just as many or MORE calories than the average doughnut (and they taste horrible). A regular-fat muffin will probably have more fat and calories than the doughnut that is probably what drew us to the display case in the first place.

The bad news? Basically, in terms of baked goods, in my opinion there is no healthy option for a nice snack at Tim Hortons.

The good news? If you are dead set on ordering something and having a sweet snack, skip the muffin and go ahead and order a decadent doughnut, you will probably be making the healthier choice anyway.