Almond Flour vs Almonds - differences

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Doomsay
Doomsay Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi there!

Typical beginner, so apologies for a newbie questions here :)

Recently i've been looking to start keto diet and was researching for any options that might help to replace all those flour-ish food, ran into almond flour being suggested as a most common one for baking things.

I have my fav shop where they sell both almonds and almond flour (same company ofc), but then it hit me that these two actually differ when it comes to macros and calories...

for comparison - their almonds per 100g:
kcal - 604
carbs - 7,6g (4,9g sugars)
fat - 52.0
protein - 20g

and their almond flour per 100g (ingredients: 100% blanched almonds):
kcal - 616
carbs - 8,7g (4,6g sugars)
fat - 53.0
protein - 21g

so two questions actually came up to my mind:
1. Where those discrepancies come from, if this flour is 100% almonds?
2. Is it better to actually buy whole almonds and make flour yourself, as there are LESS carbs from them than from flour (more keto-friendly)? Any difference in using well-grounded almonds vs flour? Which version is better in kitchen usage?

Thanks in advance for any inputs!

Replies

  • KNoceros
    KNoceros Posts: 324 Member
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    I would be tempted to put it down to being analysed by different labs, meaning slightly different results, or the whole almonds having a slightly higher water content due to being whole rather than having a massive surface area.
    But I’m also happy to be told there’s another reason.

    Also there may well be up to a 10% error either way (depending on local labelling rules and labs) so the “true” values could be anywhere between these two readings.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,109 Member
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    Just a guess here, but I would think the flour possibly holds less moisture, so the calories and macros are more 'concentrated'. For the flour, it's mentioned that the almonds are blanched, but the whole almonds possibly aren't?
  • YellowD0gs
    YellowD0gs Posts: 693 Member
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    I would also guess the almonds are de-husked prior to milling.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    Whenever I have a recipe that calls for almond flour, I just make it myself (if you have a good food processor it's very simple to do this). To me the convenience isn't worth finding another space in my pantry for another variation of an item I already keep. I generally find too that there's quite the price hike for the flour vs. buying the same weight in whole almonds - I'd recommend checking the unit price. I also don't know for sure, but I have a suspicion that the almond flour would expire sooner, which will also affect price - you can probably buy a larger quantity of whole almonds and know you had the time to use it (buying larger sizes usually means cheaper unit price), but if you had a shorter window of time with preground almond flour you might be buying a smaller amount, which would be more expensive. That said, you probably could store it in the freezer to extend its life. :)

    So none of that has anything to do with nutrition, but as a rather frugal home economist those are some other considerations I'd factor in when deciding what to buy. :sunglasses:
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    Lots of interesting possibilities already in the thread. Just going to throw one more in the mix: the almonds they use for flour are a different variety, or are harvested at a different point in their growth process, and there are these relatively small variations that show up in the nutritional analysis.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,964 Member
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    This is interesting to me because I have freely subbed almonds for almond flour and vice versa when logging and the other form caught my eye first in looking at recent or frequent foods for an entry.

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