The beginning of a new school year is an awesome time to pick up good eating habits and get a leg up on living a healthier lifestyle. Although, anyone who has ever tried to cut out junk food entirely knows how hard it is to kick the sweet cravings! The key to healthy living is making better choices rather than setting unrealistic goals and depriving yourself which can later lead to binge eating.
So, rather than cutting out dessert completely, here is a list of ways to sneak nutrition into your favorite sweet treats so you can have your cake, and eat it too!
1. Replace Oil with Applesauce in Brownies
Unsweetened applesauce is an easy swap for oil in a boxed brownie mix. Oil can have up to 120 calories and 12 grams of fat per tablespoon, and adding applesauce (which has about 15 calories per tablespoon) cuts out a ton of fat and calories while at the same time makes a deliciously moist, cakey brownie. Most sites suggest using ¾ cup of unsweetened applesauce for each cup of oil to make sure your treats don’t come out soggy.
2. Replace Butter with Avocados in Chocolate Cake
Adding avocados to chocolate may seem weird, but trust me its definitely worth a try! The rich buttery avocados keep cake silky, and the chocolate masks the flavor and the green color of the avocado. Avocados are filled with “good fats” that keep you fuller longer, keep your blood sugar from spiking, and have been proven to help you slim down. I love this recipe by Roxana’s Home Baking, but the Internet has tons of recipes that swap butter for avocados.
3. Use Bananas as a Base for Pancakes
My favorite weekend breakfast is hands down chocolate chip pancakes, but pancakes usually come with refined white flour and sugary toppings. For a simple, healthy pancake base, you can just mash one banana with two eggs and throw them into a hot greased skillet. Adding banana to your pancake base is a great way to sweeten your batter without sugar, improve your mood, prevent cramps, and add protein to your breakfast. This recipe by the Minimalist Baker adds oatmeal, peanut butter and chocolate chips for a heartier breakfast that will keep you going all day. Extra points for using dark chocolate chips!
4. Replace Poppy Seeds with Chia Seeds in Lemon Muffins
Chia seeds are one of the hottest new super-foods, and slipping them in lemon muffins is a sneaky way to pack in both antioxidants and fiber. You can make muffins from scratch, or just add the seeds to a store-bought lemon muffin mix. You expect lemon muffins to have little black poppy seeds, and most people won’t even know that you swapped them out for an extra nutrient punch.
5. Replace Oil or Butter with Coconut Oil in Cookies
By now I’m sure you have heard someone rave about the benefits of coconut oil. You can use it on your hair and your body and you can also replace butter or vegetable oil with coconut oil. If you want to try baking with coconut oil for scratch, this recipe from Sweet Treats and More is a great place to start. For other uses in pre-packaged mixes, just use the same amount of coconut oil as you would have originally put in if you were using butter or vegetable oil. Though changing the type of oil you bake with may not seem like a huge deal, coconut oil is free of trans fats, gives you energy, improves brain functions, and has been proven to help burn fat!
6. Replace Eggs with Flax “Eggs”
A flax egg is just flax meal (crushed flaxseeds) mixed with water that you can use to replace eggs in any recipe. You can buy flax meal at most grocery stores, and if you mix 1 tablespoon of flax meal and 3 tablespoons of water and refrigerate it for about 15 minutes, you create a healthy (and vegan!) substitute. Flax meal is packed with those good Omega-3s and fiber, and also has been proven to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
7. Add Quinoa to Your Energy Bars
Though many of us associate quinoa with pasta, in reality it is a very versatile, high-protein grain. Quinoa is low in fat, and made up of carbs low on the glycemic index that your body can easily process without storing it as fat. A lot of the energy bars on the market are full of processed chemicals and high in sugar. This recipe for Mochacchino Quinoa Bars by Philadelphia is a yummy way to keep your energy up all day long.
Sources:
http://bembu.com/healthiest-foods
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/benefits-of-flaxseed
http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/25-powerful-reasons-to-eat-bananas
http://www.livestrong.com/article/515877-how-to-replace-apple-sauce-instead-of-oil-in-brownies/
http://authoritynutrition.com/11-proven-health-benefits-of-chia-seeds/
http://authoritynutrition.com/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-coconut-oil/