Bought vs homemade: Date muffin

When you’re on the run or out for coffee, it’s often tempting to buy a muffin from a store. But just how healthy is it compared with a homemade one?

Bought

Muffin Break Date and apple muffin

Ingredients: hi fibre muffin mix (wheat flour, sugar, soya flour, lupin bran, milk solids, egg powder, raising agents (341,450,500), humectant (420), emulsifier (481), wheat gluten, flavour, thickeners (415,464), colour (160(B)), water, canola oil, apple (6%), dates (6%), brown sugar, vanilla essence.

vs

Homemade

Healthy Food Guide Rhubarb and date muffin

Ingredients: 300g rhubarb, 2 1/4 cups self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup castor sugar, 1/4 cup apple sauce, 2 eggs, 200ml trim milk, 100g reduced-fat spread, 70g dates.

Nutrition information per serve

At 163g each, the Muffin Break Date and apple muffins are twice as big as the 76g Healthy Food Guide Rhubarb and date muffins. So, for the nutrition information, we’ve compared the Healthy Food Guide muffin with half of the Muffin Break muffin.

Weight for weight, the one thing that stands out is the amount of fat and sugars in the bought muffin.

Even comparing just half of the bought muffin, it packs a punch at more than double the amount of fat and sugars.

This means the whole Muffin Break muffin is more of a meal than a snack, at 2260kJ per serve.

When it comes to fibre, the Muffin Break muffin wins. Using a high-fibre flour mix has boosted the fibre. But, you can always boost the fibre in the Healthy Food Guide recipe by using wholemeal flour instead of plain.

If you do buy a muffin, buy one to share. Or eat half now, half tomorrow. Remember, homemade muffins freeze really well and you’re in control of the serving size.