Pies are a favorite dessert among Americans, especially during holidays such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. One slice of apple pie can contain up to 30 g of fat as 750 calories. You will have to eat about 3,500 calories over your daily calorie expenditure to gain one lb. of body fat so eating a two or three slices at 750 calories a piece can make you gain half a pound if you already ate your total daily calories. Even though pies are notorious for weight gain, you can make pies a healthier part of a weight loss plan.
Shortening
A common crust for apple, rhubarb and cherry pies uses flour, salt and shortening. Not only does shortening have a lot of fat, but it has more calories. The J.M. Smucker Company, makers of the popular Crisco shortening, admit you can replace Crisco with butter for most recipes, except cookies. While 12 g of Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening has 110 calories and 12 g of fat, the equivalent of unsalted butter has only 86 calories and 9.73 g of fat, so replacing Crisco with butter can lower your total daily calories.
Flour
Replacing the white flour you use with whole-grain wheat flour can lower your pie's calories as well. One cup of un-enriched white all-purpose flour contains 455 calories while the equivalent amount of wheat flour contains 405 calories. A pie crust requires an average of two cups of white flour, so your pie will have almost 100 calories less.
Sugar
The core or filling of your pie might have calorie-packed sugar, which you can replace. For example, instead of mixing granny smith apples with sugar as your pie filling, you can replace the sugar with low calorie sweeteners such as stevia or erythritol. Many cherry pie recipes call for pitted canned cherries, which are preserved in sugar. To reduce your cherry pie's calories, pit fresh cherries yourself and then add a sugar substitute.
Cream
While you might eat your pies with whipped cream, it does add calories. A two tbsp. serving of the popular whipped cream Reddi-Whip can have 20 calories, while the fat-free version only has 5 calories, so you might consider switching or leaving it out entirely. While 15 calories might not be much, each additional whipped creamed pie increases your calories; if you have a larger serving size it can be more.
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