Originally, healthy dessert recipes were just fresh fruits and nuts.

But, healthy dessert recipes changed with the industrialization of the sugar industry.

As sugar became cheaper
the popularity of desserts spread quickly, as did our waistlines.

Although fat is essential for health, we eat too much of it, and the wrong kinds of it in most of our desserts.

So here’s some do’s and don’ts to keep your dessert recipes, healthy.

You will need Adobe Reader (the latest version is recommended) installed on your computer in order to open and read this PDF. You can get Adobe Reader here (a window will open so you can download without leaving page).

If you want to open the file in your browser window, just click on the link. However, if you want to download the file to view later, then right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As" or "Save File As." Then select where you want to save the file on your hard drive.

In order to print, open the downloaded file, and select the "Print" option from the PDF menu.

Do choose a source of dessert fat that is very healthy for you, like soy or tofu (it reduces bad cholesterol and raises the good). You can find many tasty versions of soy ice cream, frosting, and pudding for healthy dessert recipes.

Another healthy source of fat is from nuts. If you like peanuts, almonds and cashews, you’re in luck. But beware, all this kind of fat has more than twice the number of calories of protein and carbohydrates, so use your head and don’t go over board.

Don’t choose a source of dessert fat that is unhealthy, like anything with hydrogenated fat (it’s in most baked goods and it lowers the good cholesterol while raising the bad) and avoid ice cream, it's loaded with saturated fat (it raises the bad cholesterol).

Do choose richly flavored mildly sweetened dark chocolate, get the good stuff, a little goes a long way. It’s extremely complex with mood elevating flavonoids, and in tests it’s been shown to relax blood vessels, which is a good thing.

Don’t choose milk chocolate or any other chocolate with hydrogenated oils. And stay away from white chocolate, it’s nothing but cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla. As much as your taste buds love it, your heart hates it.

Do choose whole grain mixes (when baking cakes, brownies and deserts at home) and look for whole grain baked goods when eating out.

Don’t choose white flour or anything made with white flour. It’s one of the worst foods ever known to mankind. It’s so over processed that it has to have nutrients pumped back in to it before it can be legally sold. It’s just a whole lot of nothing.

Do choose honey as a sweetener. It’s as natural as it gets; a mix of fructose and glucose with other sugars at 64 calories a tablespoon. Plus it's yummy.

Don’t choose to use or eat anything with “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS). It’s a sweetener without any nutritional value and is suspected of being a link to our obesity epidemic.

So there is a way to have your cake and eat it to, just make healthy desserts the norm. Come back often, I'm always updating our healthy dessert recipes to satisfy your sweet tooth (without adding excess fat to your body).

Smiles…Gigi

Back to Top of Healthy Dessert Recipes
Back to Easy Healthy Recipes
Back to Best Way to Lose Weight - Home Page