Caloric foods
Chocolate
When thinking of a sweet snack for a break, often the first solution that comes to mind is chocolate. The most loved food but often not favorable for the figure. To not give up this delight, in the preparation of desserts it is good to always choose dark chocolate, with a high concentration of cocoa. This is the type of chocolate that is less caloric but still requires attention in dosage. For light recipes it is advisable to avoid milk chocolate and especially white chocolate, the most harmful for the health of our body due to the presence of sugars and fatty substances.
Egg
Even the egg suffers from caloric power. To be able to bind all the ingredients in the preparation of desserts, the main ingredient is the egg. It is hard to imagine the dough of a dessert without this essential element, but it can be used differently, eliminating the yolk, the most caloric part. Otherwise, you can opt for a tablespoon of starch and water mix as a substitute for one egg. There is also a fruit that has a great binding power: the banana. However, you have to be careful with its intense flavor which could definitely modify the taste of the dessert.
Sugar
We all know the sweetening power of sugar but also the caloric intake of this element. To not give up moments of sweetness, it is possible to replace refined white sugar with whole cane sugar, processed naturally allowing it to maintain its nutritional properties. A valid alternative can also be honey or some syrups, like maple or malt syrup. If you want to opt for an even more natural and organic solution, it is better to replace sugar with fruit, either fresh or dried, which chopped or blended can be added to the dessert dough.
However, sugar is a subtle danger to our health through the excessive glycemic load from foods! To strengthen our body and shield it from the factors we are about to describe in the following lines, it is appropriate (an understatement meaning urgent and priority) to adopt the following habits:
- consume only whole foods (and when we talk about “whole food” it should be organic, because chemical molecules used in agriculture accumulate precisely in the outer parts of the plant, and if we are in the situation of having to choose between an organic refined product and a non-organic whole, it is almost always preferable to opt for the whole. Even better would be mycorrhizal food, which besides protecting us from chemicals also shields us from toxins, heavy metals and nitrates while increasing vitamins and other antioxidants.
- eliminate from the diet completely and immediately at least refined sugar!
- consume as much as possible functional foods, that is foods in which ingredients like carbohydrates are reduced, replacing them with proteins, preferably plant-based. For example, isolated proteins from rice, legumes or nuts. There are many products with these characteristics such as baked goods, bread and pasta.
- consume foods and/or phytonutrients that regulate the insulinemic signal like cinnamon, ginseng, hops, resveratrol (in red grape juice and red wine), green tea, quercetin and berberine. Quercetin is found in red grapes and red wine, in capers (the plant that contains the highest amount by weight), in red onion, in the green, in the blueberries, in the apples, in the propolis, in the celery. Berberine is found in the fruits of barberry.
Excessive consumption of refined (non-whole) carbohydrates and simple sugars is linked to many pathologies including obesity, diabetes, hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, dyslipidemias, polycystic ovary syndrome, acne, gout, and some forms of cancer (colon, breast, prostate).
Annual sugar consumption in the United Kingdom increased from 6.8Kg per capita in 1815 to 54.5Kg in 1970. In the USA sugar consumption in 2000 reached 69.1Kg per year. The problem is not only the conscious intake of sugar but also the intake that occurs without the consumer’s knowledge. Sugar is, in fact, added to many packaged products including soft drinks, snacks, candies, condiments, and even smoked salmon and mustard.Eliminating sugar consumption and replacing refined carbohydrates with whole ones is a decisive step to improve our health.
