Wednesday evening roundup

I don't like it when people mislead you about nutrition or cooking. And so I take issue with Alexandra Sifferlin's latest. Make that issues:

(1) I'm all over replacing butter with applesauce--I've done it, and it works--but don't think you'll get much fiber out of the swap. An apple's fiber is in the skin, which doesn't make it into applesauce.
(2) Be very careful with bananas as a replacement for oils, sugar, and butter. They'll give you the texture, but they'll throw in a very strong banana flavor as a bonus. Unless you want your brownies to taste like banana, don't use banana.
(3) Depending on what you're making, you can't always just completely substitute whole wheat flour for white; it's irresponsible to suggest that you can. In many recipes, if you want to use only whole grain flour, you usually have to mix in some other (than wheat) grains flours so that you don't end up with something rock-hard and dense.
(4) There is nothing unhealthy about carbs per se. I love zucchini (which, by the way, are carbs), but they don't make for a meal in and of themselves. Make yourself some whole-wheat pasta and have the zucchini pasta on the side. Substituting something with another food of a similar shape isn't going to sustain you in the same way as that other food.


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Dax Shepard is loving vegan life.

Men according to Google searches. Wow.