It has become popular to bake cookies, cakes, etc. with almond “flour” or other nut “flours,” particularly in the Paleo community, which advocates avoiding grains. With the exception of coconut flour, which does not readily oxidize, using nut flours for baking is hazardous, because all nuts contain unsaturated oils. These oils readily oxidize at room temperature when nuts are ground into flour.
Oxidized oils (monounsaturated or polyunsaturated oils take on oxygen across their carbon-carbon double bonds) are highly inflammatory and very unhealthy.
When dough is made by grinding nuts into flour in a cookie, etc., recipe, and baking it, the heat of the oven accelerates oxidation of these oils.
What can you do if you don’t want to use grain flours for baking?
All nuts contain some combination of saturated, MONOunsaturated, and POLYunsaturated oils. Baking with coconut flour, which contains almost 100% saturated oil, is safest, because saturated oils will not oxidize.
