The leaves are changing, the weather is getting cooler, and ‘tis the season for baking. Worried you’re going to sabotage your health goals from now until the end of the year? Don’t be! With a few simple swaps, you can enjoy your baked goodies and keep your heart healthy too.
Here are five simple healthy baking swaps.
1. Swap white flour for whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour
All-purpose, or white, flour lacks fiber. In fact, it has less than one gram per serving. Americans only eat 11-15 grams of fiber per day but the recommendation is 25-35 grams per day. Fiber slows digestion and helps rid the body of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
Swap white flour for whole wheat flour in your breads and muffins to get extra fiber in your diet. Whole wheat flour has 3 grams of fiber per serving. If you don’t like the texture of whole wheat fiber in baked goods, try half white flour, half whole wheat flour. Or buy white whole wheat flour - it has the texture of white flour but the fiber of wheat flour.
Here’s a nutrient comparison:
All-purpose (white) flour:
Calories: 110
Fiber: <1g
Protein: 4g
White whole wheat flour:
Calories: 110
Fiber: 3g
Protein: 4g
2. Add pumpkin
Pumpkin can be added to waffles, muffins, bread, cookies, oatmeal, smoothies, and pasta. You can do the dirty work and scrape it from a real pumpkin (and roast the seeds!) or buy canned pumpkin. It’s full of fiber and vitamin A with only 50 calories and four grams of naturally occurring sugar per ½ cup.
Pumpkin nutrition facts:
Serving size: ½ cup
Calories: 50
Total fat: 0g
Total carbohydrates: 12g
Fiber: 4g
Sugar: 4gProtein: 1g
3. Swap eggs for aquafaba
Aqua-what? Aquafaba is the liquid in canned chickpeas (or white beans). It whips up just like egg whites and can be used as an egg replacement when baking.
If you’re out of eggs, vegan, or trying to limit egg intake - (P.S. - The cholesterol in eggs doesn't raise your cholesterol! Saturated and trans fats raise cholesterol. Egg yolks contain some saturated fat.) - open a can of chickpeas. Three tablespoons of aquafaba is equivalent to one egg. We tried it in pumpkin muffins last week and didn’t notice a difference! You could also add the chickpeas for extra fiber and protein. They mix well into blondies and muffins. You can’t even taste them!
4. Use applesauce in place of oil
A ¼ cup of vegetable oil has 480 calories and 56 grams of fat. Even if it’s heart-healthy fat, it’s a lot of fat. Use applesauce instead to reduce calories and total fat. A ¼ cup of applesauce has just 25 calories and 0 grams of fat. Applesauce has sugar, but you can nix the added sugar by buying unsweetened or “no sugar added” applesauce.
5. Replace butter with Benecol®
You probably saw that one coming! Replacing butter with Benecol® is an easy way to get more plant stanols into your diet and consume less saturated fat, that pesky fat that raises LDL cholesterol.
A ¼ cup of butter has 400 calories and 28 grams of saturated fat - 140% of the daily value (read: more than you need for a whole day!). A ¼ cup of Benecol® Original has 280 calories and four grams of saturated fat, which is 20% of the recommended daily value. It’s a one to one swap when replacing butter with Benecol® Original. So if the recipe calls for ½ cup of butter, use ½ cup of Benecol® instead.