Desserts! AHA! YUM! The thought of desserts gives me a sense of relaxation and happiness. But dessert comes with lots of calories, sugar, fats and unwanted extra pounds. HMMM! But how do I resist them. Tough choice to make but that’s the right thing to do. Earlier I had written an article How I controlled my sugar cravings but we all want some dessert once in a while. Craving for something sweet in some form is natural. We can’t deprive ourselves for the dessert cravings.
I have a serious sweet tooth and in my journey of losing weight the biggest hurdle was my sugar cravings. I still sometimes feel weak when I see dessert in front of me and with a busy schedule I completely understand that it not always possible to cook desserts at home. Hence, we end up indulging in desserts outside and gain those extra pounds in our moment of weakness.
Whenever I cook dessert at home which I do on a regular basis to cut down on outside food I try healthy swaps for sugar.
Over time, after few experiments, I decided to share my ideas with you all.
1. I try to sweeten my desserts with mejdool dates. It’s a natural way to sweeten any dessert. The best part is that even though we consume sugar and calories but we are also consuming healthy sugar and most of the time very few pieces of dates are sufficient to sweeten the dessert rather than putting cups of sugar.
By adding dates into our dessert we add fiber and potassium to our dessert and make it even more healthy and beneficial. Dates provide us with high energy and antioxidant properties.
Conclusion: if we add dates we are making our dessert more desirable and healthy and not just calorie loaded food. 🙂
2. I sometimes use 100% pure honey. Pure honey is made from the bee’s nectar and it’s the age old natural sweetener. With honey we also sometimes make some home remedies to overcome cold and cough. Hence, it has some medicinal properties as well. By adding honey to our dessert we are adding more nutrition to our favorite after meal indulgence. It is said that when honey is mixed with warm water and taken first thing in the morning it helps in weight loss.
Honey has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. It is a good source of vitamins and mineral. It also provides antioxidant.
Conclusion: With honey into our dessert we add more nutrition into our diet.
3. I also use maple syrup as one of the sugar swap. It’s delicious and sweet enough to use in small quantities. But I make sure to use 100% pure maple syrup or else we may end up consuming sugar syrup/high fructose corn syrup.
Maple syrup can boost immune system and calm tummy troubles. Maple syrup contains zinc and manganese which again helps body fight illness.
Conclusion: Maple syrup not only provides flavor to our dessert but also health benefits.
4. I use fruits as a healthy sugar swap for desserts. Fruits like bananas and mangoes provide the required healthy fats and flavor and sweeten our dessert naturally. Bananas have lots of health benefits like potassium content, good fats and healthy carbs with required fiber. Mangoes are seasonal fruit which provides nourishment to your dessert during summers and helps us add vitamin C, fiber and lots of flavor into our dessert.
By adding fruits into our dessert we enhance nutrition to our food and it’s the best way to sweeten our dessert. Fruits are the healthiest and low calorie option for sugar swaps.
Conclusion: By adding fruits into our dessert we add flavors and satisfy our sweet tooth by consuming less and good calories. We also add balanced nutrition like potassium, fiber, calcium, iron and many vitamins and mineral into our diet. We also boost our heart health. 🙂
Health Tip of the week
“Substitute sugar with healthy options and enjoy desserts while maintaining good health”.
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