The batter? Why, it's potato flour and sugar -- pure, delicious evil for those of you on the low-carb Atkins Diet.
For the rest of us keeping an eye on our arteries, the eggs, milk and deep-frying are troublesome, to say the least.
How about calories? Please.
There's not a nutrition label in sight at the many Lancaster County bakeries and doughnut shops cranking out fasnachts by the dozen today.
And it's a good thing.
"It would not be good,'' said Jim Chudnovsky, the general manager of Bird-in-Hand Bakery, laughing. "You're talking about everything anti-Atkins about this. There's a lot of carbohydrates and cholesterol.'' But you do not analyze fasnachts.
You eat them. And we are -- despite our strict diets, despite all the worrying we do about waistlines, despite our guilty consciences.
In the battle of tradition verses good health, tradition wins -- at least for today, Fasnacht Day.
Even people who don't regularly eat doughnuts were munching on the fried treats.
"We just come up here on Fasnacht Day, and that's it,'' said Bob Stanley, 46, of Christiana.
It is a day when Christian families use up all the fat in their household to avoid temptation during Lent, the 40 days of fasting that begin this week on Ash Wednesday. The byproduct, of course, is the fasnacht.
"It's definitely not the healthiest thing in the world,'' worried Ed Engle, 37, of Christiana, who paid $5.75 for a dozen fasnachts at Bird-in-hand Bakery.
"It's just kind of a tradition. It's Fasnacht Day,'' he said, adding that he doesn't really care for the fried treats anyway.
"They're OK. Fasnachts are a little plain.'' But it is good luck to eat one.
Or two.
"Sometimes we go for four,'' said Janet Degler, 60, of Lancaster City, who was eating a powdered fasnacht at Burnside Donuts on Columbia Avenue this morning with longtime friend Ron Baker.
That's four each.
Try counting the calories...
"It's 450 for each, I think,'' Degler said. "I read that somewhere.'' "I'm not worried about it,'' Baker chimed in. "I'm trying to gain weight. I have a garden down at the county park, and I lose weight during the summer.'' In the back, where the Burnside family was preparing the treats, owner Frank Burnside would not confirm the nutritional information.
"No comment, no comment!'' he said, laughing. "Look, you can eat anything if you want to. I hope everybody that's on the Atkins comes in.'' Hey, it's just one day a year.
And they don't call it Fat Tuesday for nothin'.
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