San Francisco Giants: Porcini doughnut ‘healthy’ ballpark choice

New evidence has emerged that the San Francisco Giants care more about their fans’ health than other Major League franchises care about their loyal followers.

It comes in the form of a mushroom-flavored pastry.

So you’re probably asking, how does a fried bread item served at a baseball stadium (not exactly the kind of place known for being a healthy-eating trailblazer) prove this? Because it’s not nearly as bad as the other new good items being introduced at other MLB ballparks this year.

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The porcini doughnut is a new delicacy (at least, it delicate relative to what else is stalking your aortas from concession stands this year) will be offered this season at AT&T Park, courtesy of Rich Table, a hip Hayes Valley restaurant that made the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants in 2015.

The doughnut is accented with a dusting of dried porcini powder, rather than being stuffed with the fungi, making for a little clump of savory goodness.

It’s still fried dough, so we’re not exactly talking about something primed to challenge broccoli for a spot in the health-food pantheon. But at least it’s not the cheeseburger dog that the Arizona Diamondbacks are unleashing on their fans.

That’s right, in the Valley of the Sun, baseball fans will have to rise from food comas long before rising from the ashes.

But that’s really not that outrageous. Relatively speaking.

Now, I’m sure we can all agree that eating dessert after dinner is the customary order of things. But in Pittsburgh, the food service team will try to hook Pirate fans with this treasure: the Cracker Jack & Mac dog, a hot dog covered with Cracker Jacks, mac & cheese, jalapenos, and—heck, why not—extra caramel sauce.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, baseball fans can brave the burgerizza, also with a cheeseburger slant, but in this case it comes in the same general form of a regular burger—just with a pepperoni pizza as its top bun.

But that’s practically a raw veggie juice cleanse compared to Atlanta’s other special new offering: T.E.D., which is an acronym for “The Everthing Dog.” The foot-long hot dog is buried under (PAUSE: I advice you to either have a trash can next to you or head down to the nearest food court before reading on…) Coca-Cola-infused barbecue sauce, jalapenos, popcorn, tortilla chips, beer cheese, french fries and chili. And it’s all on a pretzel bun, which, frankly, I don’t even know what that means. It probably isn’t doing any additional damage.

So, thank the good folks who decide on the AT&T Park menu for not subjecting you to such culinary atrocities.

Unless, of course, the last few paragraphs cause you to curse them for NOT scraping sludge out of the stadium’s garbage disposals and repurposing it. In which case, Atlanta awaits you.