Beat the Box: Homemade vs. Store-Bought Pie

Welcome back for another post in my Beat the Box series! Store-bought pies and pre-made crusts are convenient, but do you know what ingredients they are made with? Making your own at home is a great idea if you want to have more control over what is in your food. Today, I’ll share reasons why homemade pies and pie crusts can be a bit healthier and are worth a little extra prep time.

Store-bought options

I looked at various pre-made pies and crusts at grocery stores in the area and found several options.

Whole pies

Here are two pies from Costco, pumpkin and pecan. The ingredients for each of these are pretty similar and contain a combination of:

• Sugar

• Eggs

• Enriched bleached flour

• Shortening

• Milk

• Preservatives

The pecan pie also contains corn syrup and carrageenan.

Pre-made crusts

The ingredients in this Marie Callender’s frozen crust are:

• Enriched wheat flour

• Soybean oil

• Water

• Hydrogenated soybean oil

• Dextrose

• Salt

• Dough conditioner

Frozen Kroger pie crust:

• Enriched flour

• Vegetable shortening (interesterified soybean oil, hydrogenated cottonseed oil)

• Water

• Wheat starch

• Sugar

• Dextrose

• Salt

• Maltodextrin

• Beta-carotene

• Acacia gum

• Medium chain triglycerides

• Sodium metabisulfite

• Citric acid

Why are there so many ingredients?

Unfortunately, most packaged foods contain a lot of ingredients like the examples listed above. These ingredients tend to be cheaper to use and extend the shelf life of processed foods. For example, flour needs to be bleached before being used in baked goods, so this is often done with chemicals, which is a much quicker process than doing it naturally. Carrageenan is used as a thickener in products but some studies have shown it may contribute to inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, leading to bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, or colon cancer. Shortening is often made with hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fat. Trans fat can increase bad cholesterol and triglycerides, decrease good cholesterol, and cause weight gain. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for my blog post all about the different types of fats!

Homemade

Crust ingredients

• Flour

• Butter

• Sugar

• Salt

• Ice water

Topping ingredients

Pumpkin pie

• Canned pumpkin (no-added sugar)

• Heavy cream

• Sugar

• Eggs

• Cinnamon

• Nutmeg

• Vanilla extract

• Salt

Pecan pie

• Brown sugar

• Eggs

• Light corn syrup

• Salt

• Butter

• Vanilla extract

• Pecans

As you can see, all of these ingredients are easy to pronounce and most of us have probably heard of them before, unlike in the pre-made crusts and pies above. I do want to note that just because these pies are homemade doesn’t mean they should be eaten all the time because they are still high in sugar and fat. But of course, special occasions call for celebrating with tasty treats, so they are completely fine to have every once and a while!

Homemade pecan pie!

Not all pre-made crusts are packed with the ingredients listed in the examples above. I found this crust at Whole Foods that only contains 5 ingredients! You don’t have to make everything from scratch, but as you can see, many packaged foods, such as pies and pie crusts, contain a lot of extra ingredients that our bodies don’t need. If you’re able to make it at home, then please do! It will often taste better and be healthier for you.

I hope this post inspires you to try baking your own pie!