Where have all the donuts gone? [donut art from GenreCookShop]

At the Putnam County Senior Center in New York, seniors are confronted with a major erosion of their freedom -- the freedom to eat free donuts.

Doughnut maker Steve Battista, who with his brother operate several Dunkin' Donuts in Putnam and Danbury, Conn., said they sometimes gave out day-old goods to nonprofit groups as a way to avoid waste and be community-minded.... When William Huestis, executive director of Putnam County's Office for the Aging, sent a memo to the senior nutrition centers in Carmel, Mahopac, Putnam Valley and Cold Spring that the practice of accepting free, day-old pies, cakes, doughnuts and other baked goods had to stop.

Huestis said distributing the sweets ran afoul of federal food programs set up to make sure the elderly had healthy meals and were not socially isolated. He also questioned the cleanliness of the foods that were not collected by county staffers or cooked in county kitchens.

[from The Journal News]

The seniors took matters into their own hands by collecting 250 signatures on a petition protesting the doughnut ban.