Low Fat Baking with Reduced Cholesterol (ePub)

To start, let's see if we can come up with a simple explanation of what cholesterol is and how it affects our health. Cholesterol is a fatty substance that exists in all of our bodies. Some of our organs, like the brain and the heart, actually need cholesterol to perform their functions. It travels through the body in the bloodstream and is processed by the liver. So far, that's not a problem. The problem comes when we have excess cholesterol. It can attach itself to the walls of our blood vessels, forming a substance called plaque, which is really just cholesterol that the body stores in a blood vessel and is covered over with a protective coating. But there are several problems with that. One is that the plaque can build up to the point where it can block a blood vessel. This can cause a restriction of blood flow to important organs like the heart and the brain. The other problem occurs if the coating gets broken and the cholesterol gets released back into the bloodstream. This causes the body to send chemicals that help the blood to clot to try and get the cholesterol back under cover and can cause a blood clot. If that clot blocks an artery in the heart, that's what we call a heart attack. If it happens in the brain, that's a stroke. The next question is what causes us to have high cholesterol. As you've probably heard in the advertisements on television, cholesterol is caused both by genetic factors and your diet. If your parents or grandparents had high cholesterol, the chances increase that you will too. The one thing doctors don't know at this point is whether that elevated risk is caused entirely by genetics or whether people whose parents had bad eating habits tend to eat the same way, meaning that even the hereditary risk may still be caused partly by diet. What we do know is that diet plays a major part in determining cholesterol levels. And the biggest culprit in our diets is saturated fats. Unfortunately, a lot of the things that we like to eat are high in saturated fats, such as fatty meats; fried foods; high-fat dairy products like whole milk, cream, and cheese made from whole milk; and commercial baked products. As we get into the recipes in this book, we look at some alternatives that are lower in saturated fats, but still taste good.