Have you made sausage, rolls, pies or any other foodstuffs using wholemeal flour instead of white?

[Boookworm]

I've been thinking about trying to health up some of my meals and it seems changing the innards is the easy part but most calories seem to come from butter and white flour, is there a compromise in texture or taste if i use wholemeal flour instead and what to use instead of butter? Olive oil?

[Bert]

Wholemeal flour is the same as white flour, except with a few 'impurities' - a very small percentage. White flour is also fortified with vitamins, calcium and iron - compulsory by legislation. You can find slightly different values of the calorie content per 100g of white flour and wholemeal all over the internet, but, on each site, the difference between the two is less than 10%. Ditto with fats and oils, they all have roughly the same calorie content. Very low fat yellow spreads will often not be suitable for cooking/baking as they don't have enough fat in them.

[coccinelle]

I use a 60/40 mix (40% wholemeal) and use a 38% fat content spread which is suitable for baking. The pastry is fine.

[Maydup]

Unfortunately the healthiest option is to move away from pies altogether.

Casseroles instead of pies for main meals and baked fruit instead of crumbles and cakes for dessert. Says she tucking into a caramel chocolate bunny which feel into her shoping basket yesterday and found its way home!

[diddlydo]

I had flirtations with wholemeal flour back in the 1970s but decided that heavy everything was not for me. As for the calorie content, there's no difference, ditto oils/fats (unless you use low-fat stuff which is no good for baking anyway)