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You've eaten well all week. Then there's a birthday, or a tray of fresh banana bread at your favorite cafe, and the thought creeps in: does one slice undo all of it?
This week's last question came from a reader who loves to bake:
"I love food, and I love baking. How can I balance my long-term health goals without sacrificing my love for baking?"
One slice won't undo a good week. If most of what you eat is whole food, there's room for the cake, and a few small changes to your recipes make it easier on your blood sugar.
Plenty of us have the mixing bowl out right now, with The Great British Bake Off back on TV and Nigella Lawson judging for the first time. Here's how to keep baking for the long run, starting with how much sugar is actually too much. For the rest of your meals, our free Whole Food Swaps guide has 25 easy trades.
1. Find the 80% that fits you
People who give themselves some room tend to stick with eating well. In a study of more than 54,000 people in a weight-loss programme, a flexible approach to eating was linked to lower weight and less binge eating. Strict all-or-nothing rules were linked to the opposite.
A good loose rule is about 80% whole foods: vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, nuts, fish, lean meat, eggs and yoghurt. How you get to 80% is up to you. A few ways people do it:
Have a little every day. A small slice of cake with your afternoon cuppa, and whole foods the rest of the day.
Save the baking for the weekend. Eat simply through the week, then bake for family or friends on Saturday.
Have one big cheat meal. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson eats strictly all week and saves up his guilt-free pleasures for a Sunday cheat meal with his family.
Pick whichever one you'll actually stick with, and enjoy the cake when it comes.
2. The official sugar limit is too high
The American Heart Association says men can have up to 9 teaspoons of added sugar a day, and women up to 6. Nine teaspoons is about what's in a can of cola, every day, from something your body doesn't need at all.
For anyone eating for the long run, that's far too much. The average American eats about 17 teaspoons a day, so 9 looks strict next to that. Compared with what your body needs, which is none, it's generous. Being inside an official limit doesn't mean you're eating well.
Then there's what it does to your blood sugar. Eaten on its own, sugar sends it up fast, and the dip that often follows is when hunger comes back. In more than 1,000 people wearing glucose monitors, bigger dips 2 to 3 hours after a meal went with feeling hungrier sooner and eating more over the rest of the day. The study was run with the team behind the ZOE app.
3. Small changes to your recipes
Take about 30% of the sugar out. Most recipes have more than the cake needs. In a muffin taste test, cutting the sugar in half didn't change how much people liked them or whether they'd buy them. Vanilla, cinnamon, orange zest or a pinch of salt make it taste sweeter than it is.
Use honey for some of what's left. It's a whole food people have baked with for thousands of years, and it's sweeter than sugar, so you can use a little less. Mashed banana or apple sauce work too, and keep things moist.
Swap half the white flour for wholemeal or oat flour. The fibre slows how fast the sugar reaches your blood, and whole grains are some of the best-studied foods we have. In a large BMJ analysis, about 3 servings a day (say 2 slices of wholegrain bread and a bowl of oats) was linked to 17% lower risk of dying early, and 22% lower risk of dying from heart disease.
Have it after a meal. In a small study of adults with type 2 diabetes, eating vegetables and protein before the bread led to a smaller blood sugar rise than eating the bread first. Cake after lunch is likely to be gentler on you than cake on an empty stomach mid-afternoon.
And if you make doughnuts or fritters, the oven or air fryer uses a fraction of the oil.
Your Weekend Action
Bake the thing you were going to bake anyway, with two changes.
Take about 30% of the sugar out, and add vanilla or cinnamon to make up for it.
Swap half the white flour for wholemeal or oat flour.
Serve it after a meal, and ask whoever eats it if they notice the difference. If they don't, keep the changes next time.
One honest caveat. These swaps make a cake a bit better for you, but it's still cake. What you eat the rest of the week matters more.
Wholemeal and oat flour sit next to the white flour in most supermarkets. Or blitz rolled oats in a blender and you've made your own oat flour.
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FROM OUR INSTAGRAM
Ten everyday swaps for eating mostly whole food
More than 20,000 people saw this one. It covers ten things most of us buy without thinking, from the yoghurt to the salad dressing, and how to tell what belongs in the treat column.
The Week in Longevity
Five studies making news this fortnight. Thirty seconds each.
01 · BLOOD PRESSURE
Readings from 1.4 million adults in the Our Future Health study found 37% had high blood pressure, 42% of men and 29% of women. Of those, 59% hadn't been diagnosed. Volunteers tend to be healthier than average, so the real figure may be higher. Read the study →
02 · BRAIN
A Lancet Public Health review of 74 studies and 4.2 million people linked leisure-time activity to 24% lower dementia risk, while physically demanding work went with 20% higher risk. The studies were observational, and heavy jobs often come with other strains. Read the study →
03 · FOOD
In 120,849 UK Biobank adults, those who ate closest to the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet had 12% lower risk of heart failure, and nuts stood out at 24% lower. It's observational, and UK Biobank volunteers are healthier than average. Read the study →
04 · GUT AND BRAIN
In 1,196 adults with healthy memory, higher blood levels of imidazole propionate went with lower thinking scores and worse Alzheimer's markers, and it made brain changes worse in mice. Whether lowering it helps people hasn't been tested. Read the study →
05 · MOVEMENT
123 healthy adults averaging 72 trained 3 times a week for 6 months. Interval training and moderate cardio both cut fat, but only the moderate group lost some lean mass. The differences were small. Read the study →
What's the one recipe you'd never give up? Hit reply and tell us. We read every one.
Monday Preview
That wraps up question week. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. Monday we're back to a deep dive, and the questions we didn't get to are already shaping the next few weeks. You can keep sending them to [email protected].
Until Monday.
Longevity Daily
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