Although muffins are widely available, nutritionists emphasize that it is certainly not an everyday food and should pay attention to the amount of sugar, fat, carbohydrates, as well as trans fats. How fat and sweet are actually the most popular pastries in Latvia, reveals the Latvian Television program “Food Auditor.”
IN SHORT:
In order to further study the composition of favorite delicacies, eight types of pastries were handed over to the Scientific Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment “BIOR” – coffee buns, cheese horns, poppy buns and “Old Riga” from the confectionery “Mārtiņa beķereja”, poppy bread with chocolate, cottage cheese-raisin and “Latvijas maiznieks” cottage cheese bread “Bake yourself” from the supermarket “Maxima”, as well as cinnamon “copiti”, butter croissant and pecan bread from the supermarket “Rimi”.
How Much Sugar?
The results of the analyzes performed by BIOR show that from the researchers’ samples of muffins, the least sugar is in the cheese horn, which contains 2.6 grams. This is followed by a butter croissant with a similar indicator, but in the cheese bun “Bake yourself” and “Old Riga” – each a little more than 3 grams of sugar. On the other hand, on average, there is a lot of sugar in poppy bread and poppy-chocolate bread, but most of these substances are in pecans, cottage cheese-raisins, coffee bread and cinnamon bread.
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Nutritionist Marina Svētiņa explains that the sugar in muffins is a substance that can cause addiction. The recommended daily allowance for sugar is 25 grams or 5 teaspoons. Excessive sugar intake can lead to tooth decay, insulin fluctuations leading to hunger, weight problems, obesity, various liver diseases and even diabetes.
To understand more clearly how much sugar is in these buns, the amount of substance in grams is converted into teaspoons. It follows that a pecan roll contains three teaspoons of sugar, while a coffee or cottage cheese-raisin roll will contain three and a half teaspoons. In turn, one cinnamon “copite” contains four teaspoons of sugar. If you eat it while drinking tea or coffee with a teaspoon of sugar, then the recommended daily allowance of sugar is reached.
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Although sugar provides immediate energy and a feeling of satiety, you will want to eat again soon after the bun is sentenced, due to fluctuations in insulin levels caused by sugar. “After a while you will want to eat even more.
The more often we use muffins, the more we want to, confirms nutritionist Svētiņa.
It is not possible to bake sugar pastries without sugar, because it is necessary for the yeast in them. True, fermentation can also be promoted by using the sugar contained in the flour, but then the fermentation process will be slower.
How Much Fat?
Analyzes performed by BIOR show that cinnamon copite, which has the most sugar, has the lowest fat content – 4.8 grams per muffin. There is also relatively little fat in cottage cheese wicker and poppy-chocolate bread. On the other hand, “Old Riga” and ordinary poppy bread, as well as cottage cheese-raisin bread are moderately fatty.
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The highest fat content is in coffee bun, butter croissant, cheese and pecan muffins.
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Compared to other muffins studied, coffee bun and butter croissant have a medium fat content, but cheese bun is significantly higher – 15.7 grams. However, pecan bread with 25.5 grams of fat stands out, which is five times higher than in cinnamon bread. Pecan bread also contains 10 grams more fat than cheesecake, which has the second highest fat content of all researchers.
According to the World Health Organization, the main cause of obesity and overweight is that you eat too many calories, which are not consumed enough – you eat too much food, which is high in sugar and fat, and exercise too little.
In order to clearly understand which of the studied muffins, both indicators will be the highest, the amount of sugar and fat was placed next to the fat content. It follows that all the others are ahead of pecan bread, which has less sugar but twice as much fat as coffee or cottage cheese and raisin muffins and six times more than cinnamon bread.
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How open are traders?
Muffins are different – as is their nutritional value. The laboratory in which the analyzes are to be performed is not available to everyone, so the Food Auditor checked whether such information appeared on store shelves next to the usual bread names and prices.
The situation was identified in stores “Rimi”, “Maxima”, cafes and bakeries “Mārtiņa beķereja” and “GUSTAVbeķereja”, as well as at the gas station “Circle K” and kiosk “Narvesen”.
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At the Narvesen kiosk you can see how much sugar and fat in the muffins without asking, but in other places you have to ask the seller or remain unaware.
Uncertain trans fats
The Ministry of Health stipulates that the maximum permissible amount of trans fatty acids is 2 grams per 100 grams. In almost all pastries, which were submitted for analysis to BIOR, this indicator was within the normal range, but in two it exceeded it – in butter croissant and cake “Old Riga”.
Trans fatty acids are divided into those derived from products of animal origin, those derived from the heating of vegetable fats and those derived from the hydrogenation of fats. Hydrogenation is the industrial solidification of vegetable oil to produce margarine and fat blends.
Ilze Meistere, a representative of the Food and Veterinary Service, explains that, in accordance with the regulations, the requirements for maximum levels apply to foodstuffs containing trans-fatty acids formed by hydrogenation of oil, pressing of oil at high temperature, frying and heating of foodstuffs in oil. However, these rules do not apply to animal fats and products in which trans fats are naturally occurring and not added to the food production process.
Although such restrictions exist, it will be difficult to obtain accurate analytical results on compliance with the standards, as in this case the product must contain only animal or vegetable fats.
Both vegetable and animal fats were used in the analyzed cake “Old Riga”, therefore the obtained results will not be accurate. But butter croissants use only animal fats, so they form natural trans fats and will not be subject to these restrictions.
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