Can You Make a Cookie Healthy?

Cookies can be a handful of joy but also a handful of trans fat, excess sugar, and a few unknowns. However, you can make your own cookies and improve their nutritional value with just a few tweaks. Go back to nutrition basics and incorporate fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and spices into your favorite recipes. Try these tried and true tips:

For example, you can add:

• 50-60% dark chocolate chips (remember cacao is a plant-based food 🙂)
• Whole grain flour, oatmeal, or nut flour; use gluten-free ingredients if necessary
• Psyllium powder
• Protein powder
• Chocolate greens powder or red greens powder (especially good in no-bake cookies)
• Dried or fresh fruit for a phytonutrient boost, including raisins, berries, apples, and coconut
• Nuts and seeds for a tasty crunch
• Scrumptious spices, including cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, pumpkin pie spice, etc.
• Edible extracts, including anise, peppermint, vanilla, and more, especially in no-bake cookies

Find a way to add a rainbow of nutrients to your cookies to gain these health benefits (Minich 2019):

• Red Foods and Inflammation. High in antioxidants and red-food carotenoids (e.g., astaxanthin and lycopene), anti-inflammatory properties, and immune system modulation (e.g., vitamin C)
• Orange Foods and Reproductive Health. Abundant in carotenoids, endocrine-regulating activities, and role in fertility through support of processes such as ovulation
• Yellow Foods and Digestion. Rich in fibers to support a complex microbiome and assist in maintaining gastrointestinal health through gastric motility and/or digestive secretions
• Green Foods and Cardiovascular Health. High in a variety of nutrients for cardiovascular health, such as vitamin K, folate, magnesium, potassium, and dietary nitrates
• Blue-Purple Foods and Cognition. Polyphenol-rich foods to assist with learning, memory, and mood (flavonoids, procyanidins (monomeric and oligomeric form), flavonols (i.e., kaempferol, quercetin, and myricetin), phenolic acids (mainly hydroxycinnamic acids), and derivatives of stilbenes)

Source: Minich, Deanna M. “A Review of the Science of Colorful, Plant-Based Food and Practical Strategies for "Eating the Rainbow".” Journal of nutrition and metabolism vol. 2019 2125070. 2 Jun. 2019, doi:10.1155/2019/2125070