Healthy Baking Swaps: Change out the Fats

We love fall baking season! Every Tuesday in November, we'll go over a few ideas to make your homemade baked goods HEALTHIER than store bought! 

Baked goods should be eaten in moderation because of their high calorie content and low nutrient density. This means that they provide a lot of calories without providing much protein, fiber, or vitamins. 

A 500 calorie salad with chicken, beans, cheese, and tons of veggies can keep you full for hours, but a 500 calorie muffin may not fill you up at all, and you'll likely be hungry again relatively quickly. In this example, the salad has high nutrient density and the muffin has low nutrient density for the same amount of calories. 

Many of the calories in baked goods come from sugar (which is 4 calories per gram) and fat (which is 9 calories per gram). 

Reducing the fat in any food can significantly bring down the calorie content. But fat has many functions in our food and in our bodies!

1. Flavor and satiety

Fat carries flavor and is what makes many treats so enjoyable. Furthermore, fat provides satiety- it makes you feel full, and empties slowly from your stomach so that you stay full longer.

2. Structure

Fat helps many foods retain moisture and structure. It is essential in a baked treat that you want to hold together and have a pleasing texture. 

3. Hormone production and transport

Fat is essential for our bodies to produce certain hormones, even ones that are involved in digestion of our food! It is also used to transport many nutrients around our bodies- think of it like a little car that drives our vitamins and other food nutrients around our bodies. 

So we have learned how important fat is in our food and bodies- why does it get such a bad rap?

1. Calorie content

    As we have discussed, fat has more calories per gram (9) than protein and carbohydrates, which both have 4 calories per gram. This just means that it is easier to consume excessive calories from fat- they are packed in tighter and take up less room in food! 

2. Heart health

    High intakes of saturated and trans fats have been linked to increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Baked goods usually contain saturated fats, and this is another reason to consume them in small amounts. 

Consuming more unsaturated fat than saturated fat can dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by lowering your total cholesterol, increasing HDL or "healthy" cholesterol, and lowering LDL or "lousy" cholesterol. 

We can make our homemade baked goods healthier when we make them by using unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat!

Here's the difference and some clues to tell them apart.

Saturated fat: 

• Solid at room temperature, like butter or bacon grease after it cools to room temperature
• usually comes from animal products like fatty meat, dairy, and eggs. The exceptions are coconut oil and palm oil, which are saturated fats that comes from plants

Unsaturated fat

• Liquid at room temperature, like olive oil or canola oil
• Usually comes from plant products, like vegetable oil, nuts, and avocados. The one exception is fatty fish, like salmon. 

In baked goods try replacing butter with canola oil or even olive oil in certain items. Natural peanut butter or almond butter can also be used to replace some of the fat. 

You can also use mashed avocado in place of butter, though it does tend to turn your final products green! It is useful to use avocado in chocolate treats that contain cocoa powder, like brownies, to disguise the green color.

It is also popular to replace fats with fruit purees, like applesauce, pumpkin puree, or mashed banana. These keep your products moist but they tend to end up with a different texture. If you want to use a puree in your baked goods, try swapping out just half the fat.