Healthy Baking Swaps: Reduce the Sugar

 

You're Sweet Enough!

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

      Remember that our bodies adapt to what we give them. After reducing your intake of sweets for a time, some foods will taste sweeter - your taste buds adjust!

Cut down just a little

    In most recipes, you can reduce the sugar by up to 1/3 without compromising taste or texture! If the recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, try reducing to 2/3 cup, or anywhere in between 2/3 and 1 cup. Experiment with your favorite recipes to see what you like (or where you can even tell the difference).

Fruit

    Add sweetness using fruit. Mashed ripe bananas adds sweetness and a nice dense texture, mixing in dried fruit gives a pop of sweetness and flavor, and cooking fruit-based treats (like apple crisp!) are always a hit. You can use fruit juice as some of the liquid in certain recipes as well. 

Cinnamon

    Double the cinnamon that the recipe asks for! Cinnamon tastes sweet and adds complexity to your flavors. 

Honey and maple syrup:

    Unfortunately, using honey or maple syrup in place of granulated or brown sugar isn't going to significantly alter the nutrition profile of your end result. According to our bodies, sugar is sugar and is processed in just about the same way and has about the same amount of calories per gram. However, honey and maple syrup are less processed than granulated sugars, so they do fall a bit lower on the glycemic index, which means they may not affect your blood sugar as quickly, though the difference is very slight. 

    On a positive note, these more natural sugars are much more environmentally friendly than highly processed sugars. It is easy to find local honey and maple syrup, cutting down on transportation emissions and supporting your local economy. The process to make/harvest delicious honey and maple syrup has far less effect on the environment than the factories that produce granulated sugar.

Non-nutritive sweeteners

    Splenda, Equal, and Sweet'N Low are called non-nutritive sweeteners because they provide sweetness with very few or no calories. Very small amounts are needed to sweeten food and drink so the portion size is a tiny fraction of what one would add if using sugar, and they are not completely absorbed by your digestive system. More research is needed to determine the effect of these sweeteners on our bodies.  They can be used in baking, but often add an unpalatable aftertaste and may not provide the same satisfaction as calorie containing sweeteners, which is thought to possibly increase the amount needed to signal to your brain's reward center. 

    Stevia and Monkfruit are  non-nutritive sweeteners that are made from plants and have recently become more popular as they are thought of as more natural than lab-produced sweeteners. Again, more research is necessary to determine if these products are healthier for our bodies. 

    Everybody's body, tastes, and health needs differ slightly- non nutritive sweeteners may be beneficial for some people's health and not for others depending on their individual health needs. Consult your doctor or registered dietitian to learn if these would be helpful for you or not, or read more here.