The brownie universe isn’t exactly full of surprises. The combination of sugar, butter, flour, chocolate, eggs, a few extraneous ingredients, plus a little oven time, inevitably leads to some form of brownie action. Of course, the resulting degree of deliciousness is all in the details — just talk to the adamant nut-adders, the chocolate chip enthusiasts, or the “fudgy” versus “cakey” people that can seemingly never agree. Yet, by and large, the language of brownies is pretty much the same: delicious chocolate squares that just about everyone loves. Including me.
But I have a secret. With the exception of chocolate (which can be profoundly beneficial in its unprocessed form), I don’t use any of the “conventional” ingredients in my homemade brownies. In fact, I don’t even bake them. (I know — what a rebel.) Instead, by using exclusively natural, whole foods, the inherently gorgeous flavor of each healthy ingredient does all the sweet singing — without needing the crutch of sugar or butter. Undercover health benefits like antioxidants, good omega fats, potassium, magnesium (and more) nutritionally rank this dessert as more of an energy bar than an “extra 20 minutes on the treadmill indulgence.” Best of all, five ingredients plus five minutes is all it takes to go from zero to brownie.
Oh, and as for their decadent texture? Simply put: go team “fudgy.” Here’s the printable recipe.
Light your torches, there’s a new witch hunt in the grocery store. The target? Agave syrup. After hitting the mainstream several years ago as the new “healthy sweetener of choice,” agave recently has been under fire with negative backlash all across the health-food spectrum, with many companies even considering pulling agave from their products due to the extent of customer concern.
But is agave really that bad? Can it be compared to high fructose corn syrup? Should we go out of our way to avoid it? Let’s take a look.
What happened with agave?
It really wasn’t all that long ago that many people were just beginning to fall in love with agave – using it often in the place of cane sugar, corn syrup and honey for its intense and clean-tasting sweetness. Agave’s brief history in the North American marketplace has relied upon being marketed as a “raw healthy sweetener.” This sweet syrup extracted from the agave cactus proved especially valuable to the diabetic community, who embraced agave’s low glycemic index. Then, suddenly, agave was everywhere – in recipes, in drinks, in packaged foods, in restaurants, and of course, in desserts. Between a solid stamp of approval from the health food community, and a new excuse to get simply get some sugary goodness on, the mantra of healthy sweet food became “no sugar . . . just agave.”
So when the story broke that agave was actually not healthy at all and was actually comparable to corn syrup, it’s no wonder there was a strong outrage. After all, agave was sold to us as a “healthy sweetener,” and we were paying a premium price tag to enjoy its benefits. Health advocate Dr. Mercola released this adamant and influential article, which was posted and reposted in just about every health-oriented nook and cranny. Suddenly agave was the bad guy, leaving consumers feel betrayed . . . and confused.
Is agave really worse than high fructose corn syrup?
Most of us understand that high fructose corn syrup is something we should avoid entirely. And it’s true that both syrups have very high levels of fructose (the type of sugar that is primarily found in fruit), making the comparison understandable. But high fructose corn syrup is really quite bad – it’s a (mostly) genetically modified, highly processed product that often contains mercury. In comparison, agave is much a less processed product (depending on the source), not to mention free of toxic mercury. Plus, it’s also about twice as sweet as corn syrup – so even though ounce per ounce the fructose levels are the same, you can get away with using significantly less thereby reducing the total sugars.
Unfortunately, using half as much has not been in the game plan for most people. Initially influenced by that “healthy sweetener” tag, liberal use of agave became acceptable and even celebrated — we seemed to forget that at the end of the day, agave syrup is really just a highly concentrated liquid sugar. Clearly, agave was marked misleadingly as “healthy,” but at the same time many companies and individuals failed to use restraint when including it in foods. Sugars – fructose included – are not bad; we just don’t want an excess of them.
If there is one food philosophy that I connect with more than any other it is simply making better choices — which is where agave takes a seat in my kitchen. I find “better choice” agave exceptionally useful in some recipes because it is so efficiently sweet . . . but I avoid using it in large quantities, and try to get away with using as little as possible when formulating recipes. Often, I will use agave in conjunction with another healthier sweetener like stevia to help round out the sweetness, while allowing the other sweetener to do most of the legwork. For healthy culinary purposes, agave ranks amongst the lowest of the sweeteners. But that still doesn’t mean it’s bad — agave just has to be used more consciously then many of us have been accustomed to using it in the past.
Alternative useful sweeteners for a healthy kitchen:
There’s no need to be as obsessively dependent on agave as we’ve become, because let’s face it — there’s a treasure trove of other healthy sweeteners which each bring their own unique benefits to the table. Fresh or dried fruit is always a first option sweetener because it has nutrients and fiber that it brings along for the sweet ride. But fruit simply doesn’t “work” in every recipe, which is why we’re so lucky to have variety. Here’s a short list of some other sweeteners I find particularly useful in making healthy, natural recipes:
Stevia
Palm Sugar
Date Syrup/Sugar
Yacon Syrup/powder
Maple Syrup/Sugar
Jerusalem Artichoke Syrup
The Bottom Line
Agave is not what I would consider to be a “best choice” sweetener – that’s where fruit and stevia step in – but it is unquestionably still a “better choice” in comparison to refined cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup (which make up 99.9% of the sweetener choices that occur every day). As for the best choice in the pursuit of optimum health, perhaps simply maintaining a healthy perspective on the role of sugar in our diets is the most important and beneficial practice of all.
For further reading on why agave isn’t as bad as it seems, I highly recommend this detailed and well researched article: The “Agave Is Bad For You” Fallacy.
My mission is to share the delicious enjoyment of nutritious natural food and an eco-friendly lifestyle with everyone I can, so yup – the book’s totally free (it’s a great introduction to this fantastic lifestyle!). Head over to the right side of my blog page to the sign up box and get access to your instant download of:
A Day of Superfoods: 5 easy natural recipes for feeling fabulous, morning to night.
When you sign up, you’ll learn how to make a whole day’s worth of amazingly delicious and energy-packed food, including:
• breakfast: strawberry banana hempseed parfait
• lunch: mediterranean collard wraps
• dinner part I: simple spring salad with creamy house dressing
• dinner part II: fiesta pizza
• dessert: dark chocolate orange truffles
YUM, right? And these aren’t just any regular recipes, by the way. From an in-the-know superfood ingredient list, to mouth-watering photos, to easy to follow instructions, these recipes are designed to make a healthy energy-filled lifestyle delicious, fun, and accessible. I’ve written each recipe so that everyone – not just professional chefs or health gurus – can make flavorful natural food, and appreciate the benefits of healthy food immediately.
When you sign up, you’ll also become part of my special email group – which is awesome because you’ll get my friendly natural foodie newsletter that includes recipes, tips and news on how to eat excellently for both ourselves and the world around us. (And in no way do I share your email with anyone – I loathe when people do that!)
I seriously can’t wait for you to try the recipes, and would love to hear what you think too. If you like the message, then be a good buddy and pass this offer onto your friends, family, or anyone you think can benefit from a natural energy-filled lifestyle, so they can get a copy of the book for themselves. Sign on up!
This is a tale of a treat with an identity crisis. Technically, it’s a smoothie because it
A) is made in a blender
B) has fruit
C) includes a little nutrient-rich protein powder
D) is kinda an ugly green color (a non-essential but frequent result of smoothie making).
Yet there’s something about this blend, with its thick frosty creamy mangos and sweetly inviting flavor that makes it more than “just a smoothie.” I make it a little extra thick, throw it into a bowl, and eat it with a spoon as a quasi-sherbet-like dessert. So is it a smoothie? Is it dessert? Unnecessarily complicated semantic questions like this demand unpronounceable answers, don’t you agree? Therefore, I think this treat is best summed up as a smoossert.
By the way, I’m kinda in love with Vega’s new Sport Protein Powder — 20 grams of protein, high quality ingredients, and a smooth viscosity when mixed up into drinks. Another hemp or rice-based vanilla protein powder would probably do the trick here too, but the Vega blend pretty much rocks.
Green Mango Dessert Smoothie
You can increase protein powder to two servings and add a little extra water for a more traditional smoothie result and less of a dessert.
2 heaping cups frozen mango chunks
1/2 cup hemp milk
1/2 cup water
1 scoop vanilla flavored Vega Sport Protein Powder
touch of white stevia, to taste (optional)
2 Tbsp shredded coconut (optional)
Blend mangos, hemp milk, water, and protein powder together in a blender until completely smooth. If desired, boost sweetness with a touch of stevia, to taste, and blend again. Serve in a bowl and top with shredded coconut. Serves 2.
The potent symbolism of a new year escapes very few of us. Resolutions get made. Goals are set. I’m sure the words “get healthy” are said more on January 1st over any other day of the year.
Around this time, a lot of us may be considering a dietary cleanse of sorts — you know, to kinda to kick our new, better, and noticeably more awesome selves into high gear. A cleanse is essentially eliminating accrued toxins from the body and/or allowing the digestive system to “rest” by means of a full throttle consumption of detoxifying herbs, juices, elixirs or fancy concoctions . . . and not eating much else. Many times cleanses don’t even allow solid food.
A small cleanse (say, a few days long) can certainly have its place in a natural lifestyle. But rather than such a regimented approach, I prefer utilizing a style of cleansing I call “organic cleansing.” Instead of taking the extreme measures of a fast, simply eating really good-for-you food on a daily basis (essentially “cleansing” daily) allows your body to stay “clean” at its own natural and organic rate. Really good-for-you foods include whole, plant-based foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. Also, eating more “raw” foods – foods that haven’t had many of their vitamins and enzymes destroyed by cooking and heat — is among the easiest and healthiest ways to cleanse (or stay cleansed!) at an organic pace. Basically: eating natural food keeps you clean & energized. It’s that simple.
Eating this way is fun, as you can genuinely feel good about each and every positive choice made. It feels like you giving to you, with, I imagine, the inner conversation going something like this:
Outer You: Hey, here, I made this smoothie for you.
Inner You: Oh, hey, thanks.
Outer You: Yeah, no worries. (processes smoothie)
Inner You: Wow this is GOOD! Yum yum yum yum.
Outer You: I know, I had some.
Inner You: Here, I have something for you too: it’s called “a lot of energy.”
Outer You: Nice – I like a lot of energy.
Inner You: Do you think you could make me a salad later?
Outer You: Sure, but we’re going for a long hike first.
Inner You: You’re the greatest.
Outer You: You are.
Inner You: No you.
Outer You: YOU. (group hug).
Here’s 5 foods to incorporate right away to get your great tasting, group-hugging, “organic cleanse” on:
Juice – You don’t have to go on a juice fast to get the benefits! Make sure it’s fresh and not from concentrate. No juicer at home and no juice bar around? Even a handheld citrus squeezer to make some fresh-squeezed orange juice will make the difference – and what a heavenly difference at that!
Herbal Tea – Herbs are amazingly powerful (!) and steeping them in tea is an excellent way to take advantage of their benefits while staying warm inside at the same time. Right now I’m big into nettle tea and peppermint tea.
Smoothies – The no brainer approach to a better meal. Fill up a blender with fruit, a plant-based milk or water, and your favorite superfoods for a flavorlicious meal. I think if everyone substituted their breakfast for a smoothie each day, the world would be a better place.
Leafy Greens – Eat them. Have a salad, juice them, stick a couple in your smoothie, serve them as a steamed side; just eat them. Your body loves them, and the more you can incorporate them into your diet, the better and cleaner you will feel. Sea vegetables are excellent detoxifiers as well.
Kombucha – This 2000 year-old elixir is ideal for daily organic cleansing. Kombucha is not only a delicious bubbly beverage, but one that contains copious amounts of enzymes, micronutrients, and also contains lactic acid – a dietary component which increases oxygen in the blood.
And of course, here are more recipes for a natural diet.
Not that I ever really need an excuse to eat chocolate, but I have to admit the recent media blitz regarding cacao’s “extreme vitamin C content” had me reaching for an extra piece or two. Night-time newstations buzzed, and highly trafficked websites such as MSNBC featured special reports touting raw cacao as a food with “extraordinarily high [levels of] vitamin C.”
Extraordinarily! Well, perhaps just ONE more bite then . . . (but last one for real FOR REAL this time) . . .
Yet despite this popularized news, superfood company and cacao manufacturer Navitas Naturals has just released what they consider “the honest truth” — exposing that even when processed at low temperatures (i.e. “raw”), there is actually no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present in cacao.
Oh.
Since 2004, Navitas Naturals has meticulously conducted lab tests directly looking for vitamin C content in raw cacao — each test coming up consistently negative. Always seeking new exciting health advantages of the natural foods they sell, having a firm grasp on nutrition is an important part of the company’s platform. Yet with the current media claims on cacao’s high vitamin C content pointing directly against their own findings, the Northern California-based company decided to let science settle the score.
The multi-platform test performed included using two separate laboratories and three different analytical methods: High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Capilary Electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection, and Titration. Though all three methods have their place in the scientific community, Titration is the most commonly used method in the food industry when determining vitamin C (ascorbic acid) content. However, there is a critical detail within the Titration method which is easy to miss when testing raw cacao’s vitamin C content: Titration is unable to differentiate the vitamin C (ascorbic acid) from the vitamin’s analogs. Consequently, many companies experience test results known as a “false positive.”
Navitas Naturals has a different preferred method – HPLC – which looks directly for vitamin C (ascorbic acid), and not just the analogs. And although the analogs in the Titration test predictably showed a “high vitamin C” false positive, the HPLC method clearly documented a negative vitamin C reading. After utilizing the CE method for a third round of testing, the reports again returned consistent with the negative HPLC results.
To cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s, Navitas then tested their cacao products against one of the largest raw cacao brands in the United States using the Titration and HPLC methods. True to all previous findings, the results confirmed raw cacao, regardless of source, has no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present.
So here’s the honest truth: cacao is a tremendously beneficial superfood — serving as a rich supply of antioxidants, one of the highest natural dietary sources of magnesium, and containing an impressively high iron content alongside many other essential minerals. Navitas Naturals’ raw cacao powder, for example, has a documented score of a 950 ORAC units per gram (95,000 per 100g) — which is huge! You only need 6g of this organic raw cacao powder to exceed your daily ORAC need as per USDA recommendations. This “real chocolate” is 100% a health food. But as nutrition is a quantifiable science, it is important to be clear on one thing: vitamin C is one benefit cacao does not provide.
And now, yes, back to your regularly scheduled chocolate consumption.
I wish I had a brownie for every time I’ve been informed that eating naturally is simply too hard. While making fancy shmancy meals can be a fun project, uber delicious healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated…
Undercover health benefits like antioxidants, good omega fats, potassium, magnesium (and more) nutritionally rank this dessert as more of an energy bar than an “extra 20 minutes on the treadmill indulgence.” Best of all, five ingredients plus five minutes is all it takes to go from zero to brownie.
One of my favorite experiments thus far turns out to be one of the easiest: Red Raspberry Popsicles – enhanced by date syrup that’s added just before freezing so it stays in tight little flavor pockets throughout the popsicle. Heaven brought to you by your freezer, and an ideal summertime treat. Here’s how to make them.
Agave recently has been under fire with negative backlash all across the health-food spectrum. But is agave really that bad? Can it be compared to high fructose corn syrup? Should we go out of our way to avoid it? Let’s take a look.
Sweet news! I’ve got a gorgeous NEW superfoods recipe e-book out, and guess what? I’m giving it away for FREE. 
Not that I ever really need an excuse to eat chocolate, but I have to admit the recent media blitz regarding cacao’s “extreme vitamin C content” had me reaching for an extra piece or two. Night-time newstations buzzed, and highly trafficked websites such as MSNBC featured 
`
Subscribe in a reader
