There are tons of cooking oils on the shelves, some more popular and healthier than others. These different cooking oils have a variety of uses in the kitchen. And while you can almost always substitute one for the other, be warned that you may not often get similar results in terms of health benefit, taste and aroma.
Besides contributing to the cake’s flavor profile, butter is used widely in traditional baking to enhance richness and structure in pastries, particularly cakes. However, if you’re obsessed with baking a healthy cake, then extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) does the trick.
BAKING WITH OLIVE OIL IS HEALTHY
Extra virgin oil is considered the healthiest of all cooking oils. Experts, such as nutritionists and dieticians, have examined multiple aspects of cooking oil before arriving at this critical verdict, including:
- The percentage of unhealthy fats in the cooking oil
- The rate of healthy fats in the cooking oil
- Cholesterol levels
- The extent of processing and refining
- Oxidative stability
- The smoke point, etc.
OLIVE OIL HAS LITTLE SATURATED FAT AND NO TRANS FAT
By knowing healthy and unhealthy fats present in cooking oils, you can easily determine which cooking oil is ideal for your healthy cake.
Unhealthy fats include:
- Saturated fats and
- Trans fat
Dietitians recommend cutting down on your intake of saturated fat. Oil with lower saturated fat is relatively healthier in day-to-day cooking and baking. Butter, for instance, has 63% saturated oil, while extra virgin olive oil has a modest 14%. This explains why olive oil is the healthier substitute for butter in baking. Olive oil, therefore, poses a low risk of heart diseases to consumers.
Trans fat forms when manufacturers introduce hydrogen to liquid fat to solidify cooking oil’s structure and increase it's shelf life. But research shows trans fat to be a toxic artificial fat that you shouldn’t be eating. Interestingly enough, trans fat is common in most refined vegetable oil. But olive oil does not contain trans fat.
OLIVE OIL IS LOADED WITH ANTIOXIDANTS
Olive oil is naturally full of antioxidants responsible for reducing your risk of getting chronic diseases. The role of antioxidants in the body is to inhibit inflammation and protect the cholesterol in your blood from oxidation which could potentially damage your cells.
Chronic oxidative stress increases your chances of contracting chronic diseases like diabetes mellitus (DM), stroke, and cancer. Fortunately, eating food rich in oxidants raises antioxidants levels in your blood to neutralize oxidative stress. Olive oil cake and other olive oil recipes like lemon olive oil cake can boost your antioxidant levels.
OLIVE OIL MAY HELP WITH WEIGHT LOSS
Besides its numerous health and nutritional benefits, extra virgin olive oil can also help in weight loss. Studies have revealed that olive oil contains compounds critical in weight loss.
Extra virgin olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fats that help maintain a healthy weight. A diet of monounsaturated fatty acids prevents weight gain and unhealthy fat accumulation. Olive oil also has a healthy presence of “Medium-Chain Triglycerides” that can be easily processed and absorbed in the liver as an energy source. These fats also help people maintain a healthy weight.