When you’re baking – whether it be baby shower cookies, chocolate chip cookie gifts, or cookies for Mother’s Day – you probably have some preferences regarding what makes a good cookie. Some people like their cookies thin and crispy, while others like them fat and chewy. Many components of the baking process influence the final result, but nothing changes the outcome quite like the kind of fat you use.
(markusspiske / pixabay)
We’re going to take the next two weeks to delve into the world of fat in cookies. This week, we will talk about the health pros and cons of butter, margarine, oil, and shortening, and next week, we will go into how different fats affect flavor and texture.
Health
You hear a lot about fat in the media. It’s good! It’s bad! It’s somewhere in between! The truth is, science keeps swinging one way and then the other regarding which kind of fat is best for your body. You need fat to have energy, stay warm, and allow your body to continue its normal processes. Too much fat, though, can be detrimental to your health and well-being. Not only does eating too much fat increase your weight, but it also puts you at risk of heart disease, which is currently the leading cause of death in the US.
It all boils down to this: you need to be conscious about what kind and how much fat you eat. There are pros and cons to each type of fat, so there’s no easy answer for which one is better for you. Moderation combined with some additional information can help guide your baking decisions in the future, however.
Butter
Julia Child has long come under fire for her liberal use of butter and cream (though it probably plays a big role in how delicious her recipes were…), but she argued that food was meant to be enjoyed. She did modify her recipes later in life to include healthier versions, and she stressed moderation. Still, she is famously quoted for saying, “I am very careful to eat two tablespoons of saturated fat a day, with greatest pleasure.”
Butter, for all its tastiness, is high in saturated fat (linked to heart disease) and calories (tied to weight gain). On the one hand, it is usually processed less and has fewer ingredients than other fats. Additionally, butter contains vitamin A, vitamin E, calcium, niacin, riboflavin, and phosphorus – all healthy nutrients that your body needs. On the other hand, it’s so dense in saturated fats and calories that you need to be careful when and how much you use.
Margarine
Most people consider margarine a healthy alternative to butter, and that’s both true and false. Certain aspects of margarine are better for you, but it depends on the brand of margarine you purchase. For the most part, margarine is lower in saturated fats and higher in polyunsaturated fats than butter. Polyunsaturated fats are more heart-healthy, and margarine also comes with no cholesterol, which is another good thing. Additionally, some varieties of margarine are dairy-free, making them a great alternative for people who are vegan or have food allergies.
The problem is that margarine is highly processed. It started life as liquid vegetable oil that then had to be compressed, heated, mixed, and exposed to all kinds of other things (including hydrogen during the hydrogenation process) before it became solid at room temperature. Some margarines have the same amount of calories and total fat as butter, but with the potential of added trans fats (a type of fat that is worse than saturated fat). You can counteract this problem by choosing softer, tub margarines and by reading the label on the back. Keep in mind, though, that softer margarine could change the texture of your cookies (more on that next post).
Oil
There are so many different oils on the market these days that it can be difficult to know where to start. Palm oil, olive oil, canola oil, sunflower seed oil, peanut oil – the list of available oils could go on for days. It would take a much longer blog post to address all of the oils’ individual health benefits, so we will talk generally using canola oil as our example.
Oil in baking is a necessary ingredient, but you don’t often find it in cookies because it doesn’t mix well. That said, liquid oil can be a heart-conscious option when you are baking because it has next to no saturated fats. Additionally, it doesn’t have any trans fats or cholesterol, which is a good thing.
The downside to using oil in your cookies is that they often are higher in calories than butter or margarine, and they usually have more total fat, too. As oil usually has a more neutral flavor than butter or margarine, that could leave you with a highly fattening, rather tasteless cookie.
Shortening
Shortening has many of the same pros and cons as margarine in regards to your health. It started as a liquid oil that was heated and compressed and then had hydrogen added to the mix (a process called hydrogenation or partial hydrogenation). Trans fats sometimes result from the hydrogenation process, though you can check for that on the nutrition label on the back.
Shortening generally comes from vegetable oil, so it doesn’t have the dairy additives that you can sometimes find in margarine, and it has no cholesterol or sodium. Overall, however, it is still high in total fat, though most of that is polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, which are healthier compared to saturated fats.
Unfortunately, there are very few kinds of decadent and completely healthy cookies out there, but cookies are still a necessary ingredient to life’s happiness. If you can’t live without your favorite fat, there are other ways to make cookies healthier (use whole wheat flour, reduce the sugar, substitute applesauce for oil, etc.) without sacrificing flavor, but it will require some experimentation. Tune in to our next post for how different fats can affect flavor and texture.
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