This could be the most overlooked way of getting kids healthy.

It’s every parent’s struggle. Even if you’ve been mostly getting the young ones to eat healthy, it’s always inevitable kids will choose the highly processed, highly palatable, sweetest, saltiest, and fattiest treats out there. It’s a constant battle between helping them to learn healthy eating habits vs the availability of high process factory engineered foods even adults couldn’t resist eating sometimes. Eating these kinds of foods is consuming a ton of empty calories, and the result could lead to nutritional deficiency and diseases.

So, while it’s a struggle to get the kids to eat better, it doesn’t need to be a battle. The solution? Baking at home! Some of you may be thinking “Why in the world would changing one junk food, to another -but with more work- would help the kids eat healthier?”. Well, let me tell you, you don’t have to do the traditional baked goods. You can substitute sugar, with something lower in the glycemic index like maple syrup or dates. You don’t need to use butter or oil either, you can just use more milk or maybe blend/mash a banana or a can of chickpeas. You can swap half the flour with almond flour and a little bit of starch. If the kids hate vegetables, you can sneak them into the batter off some muffins, or cookies.

Depending on what your kids need, or whatever lifestyle you and your family are in, learning to substitute or add in ingredients in baking is one of the best ways to achieve your nutrition goals.

Here I will go over super star ingredients that you can use to try in your baked goods. You don’t even need to experiment with recipes either. Thanks to how big the world wide web is, you can try googling specific recipe + ingredient and 99% of the time it’s show up. Now let's look at some useful foods that would do great with healthy baking.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes aren’t just for sweet potato pies. After boiling and mashing they, they can be mixed in to just about any batter. They are high in fiber, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and magnesium. Great for boosting your baked goods in nutrition and flavor. They have way more nutrition than pumpkins too, and the spuds can easily replace them 1:1 in any recipe. If you love pumpkin spice bread, try substituting it with sweet potatoes for a highly nutritious flavorful treat.

Canned Beans/Chickpeas

There’s a reason science has found these itty-bitty things to be link with longevity, and that’s fiber. Beans, legumes, and chickpeas, they all can be boiled and blended up and mixed into anything. They work wonderfully well with making vegan cheesecake for those who are vegan or lactose-intolerant. I’ve tried it before and gave it to someone who doesn’t like cheesecake at all, and they ended up liking the bean vegan version better. Fiber’s not the only thing that makes this ingredient a super star when it comes to nutrition, and that’s because it’s full of protein, iron, magnesium, folate, zinc, vitamin B1, and more.

Avocado

Avocados a great source of healthy fats. They are also high in folate, Vitamin b6, Vitamin E and Vitamin k. Not a lot of people know it, but this delicious fruit doesn’t just have to be for guacamoles. They are often used as sweet smoothies in other cultures as well. They’re creamy almost like a milk shake when blending it up with milk, ice and sugar. It they can be used in smoothies, why not also in baked goods too? There are lots of people posting recipes of avocado cookies, puddings, and cakes. Especially with chocolate.

Spinach

I know what you’re thinking. The dreaded spinach that people have nightmares of as children having to see such green on the plate and being forced to eat that stinky mush. Well dread no longer, because the good news is, it’s almost undetectable when you blend it up, and bake them into a sugary muffin. If you add it in with coco, chocolate, or citrus, the flavor becomes more pleasant even masking the taste of the vegetable. Spinach can increase your baked goods nutrition with vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, folate vitamin K, as well as good old gut health boosting fiber.

Almond Flour

There are so many great flour alternatives out there, but for some reason almond flour is not well talked about. Almond flour brings a delicious nutty flavor to baked goods. It can give cakes a very delicate soft texture as well. However, it’s a little tricky when substituting it in baking, because it doesn’t have any gluten in it. I recommend using tried and true recipes online if you want to use almond flour in your baking. Even if it’s a bit difficult to work with in recipes, it hits hard on boosting protein, vitamin E, manganese, magnesium, and zinc, so I wouldn’t write it off too soon.

Cottage Cheese

The viral high protein cottage cheese recipes have taken over the internet the past few years, and for a good reason. It works so well in making cheesecakes, low fat and colories too. Great for boosting calcium, b12, and riboflavin (b2), and protein.

Seeds (Chia, Flax, Hemp, Pumpkin, etc.)

Whole, ground, or milked, these seeds are great for adding into any recipe. They add in lots of healthy fats like omega 3, and are full of nutrients like vitamin E, zinc, magnesium, iron, and protein. They suddley change the flavor of baked goods to be deliciously nutty and combined with regular all-purpose flour creates treats with complete protein.

Nut/Seed Butters

Nut/Seed butters are great for replacing butter overall. They increase the protein per serving, and not to mention the boost in nutrients like zinc, iron, magnesium, and vitamin E. They work very well in replacing the butter in cookies and makes them more flavorful in a nutty way. Don’t be afraid to go nuts over these spreads.

Greek Yogurt

Just like cottage cheese but less dense. This fermented treat works well with cakes, muffin, pancakes, and cookies. Anything really. If you’re looking to reduce your fat intake and increase the protein, you can substitute any fat in recipes for yogurt. But don’t replace all of it, otherwise it may make your treats too dry. Greek yogurt can help increase calcium, b12, and riboflavin (b2), and protein.

In conclusion: Baking is great, especially when you can customize, and tweak recipes to fit certain lifestyle needs, and boosting you and your families nutritional requirements. Not every ingredient can substitute anything in every recipe, it takes some testing and trial and error to get a recipe right, but don’t pass up an opportunity to sneak in some healthy snacks in a sweet way.