Desserts Provide Full Meal Of Fat

Gooey pecan rolls and creamy cheesecakes. You know they’re loaded with calories and fat. But a single bakery pecan roll is filled with as much cholesterol-boosting fat as a breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages and pancakes with margarine, a consumer watchdog group said today.

And that slice of restaurant cheesecake. Well, it’s got as many calories as a personal-sized pepperoni pizza and two banana splits, according to the analysis of retail sweets by the private Center for Science in the Public Interest.

For its latest restaurant-food review, the CSPI analyzed 16 cookies, croissants and other goods sold by six establishments: Au Bon Pain, The Cheesecake Factory, Cinnabon, Mrs. Fields, Starbucks and Vie de France.

Jayne Hurley, the senior nutritionist who conducted the study, said the group didn’t expect to find the “nutritional equivalent of broccoli.”

“But we also didn’t expect a pecan roll from Au Bon Pain to have 800 calories, 11 teaspoons of sugar and more cholesterol-raising fat than an entire breakfast of two eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausage links and two pancakes with margarine,” Hurley said.

“It’s not really surprising that our desserts have fat and sugar in them,” said Ellen Carno, spokeswoman for Boston-based Au Bon Pain. She said the company was not disputing CSPI’s caloric findings.

Starbucks spokeswoman Cheri Libby said the Seattle-based company offers low-fat and lowcholesterol goods alongside its traditional pastries.

Representatives for the remaining four companies did not return telephone messages or declined to comment.

Among CSPI’s other findings:

A Cinnabon cinnamon roll: 670 calories, 34 grams of fat.

A Starbucks cinnamon scone: 530 calories, 26 grams of fat.

A Mrs. Fields double fudge brownie: 420 calories, 25 fat grams.

The government recommends no more than 65 fat grams daily for adults.