Tips to Make Your Holiday Cookies More Wholesome

My first memories in the kitchen involve making holiday cookies to share with friends and family. As a functional medicine physician and chef, I’ve learned a few tips to make my holiday baking traditions more health supportive. For me, the perfect cookie is baked with minimally-processed ingredients, yet has crispy, lightly golden edges with rich flavor and just the right amount of sweetness. Here are some easy substitutions you can do at home this holiday season to bring a bit more nutrition to your favorite cookie recipes:

• Start with the best ingredients. Of course, the quality of the finished product is only as good as the ingredients you start with. Aim to use fresh organic ingredients when possible. The holiday baking season is a great time to take inventory of the products in your pantry. Check their expiration dates and check that dried spices have not become rancid with age. Try swapping sea salt for iodized table salt and use aluminum-free baking soda. Minimize artificial ingredients that may be found in imitation extracts and food colorings.

• Replace and reduce sugar. Cookies are a treat. As a general rule, minimizing sugar in our daily routine is important for our health, but life is meant to be celebrated especially at the holidays. There are ways to cut back on sugar yet still have a tasty show-stopping cookie. Instead of icing your sugar cookies, sprinkle with nuts, orange zest, dried flowers (I love crushed rose petals), seeds or drizzle with dark chocolate. Sugar adds moisture to cookies, but you can often decrease the sugar in a recipe (up to about 25%) with little compromise. Experiment with your favorite cookie recipe. You can add in a splash of your favorite extract like vanilla, almond or lemon for a sweet confectionary flavor. Natural nonnutritive sweeteners like monk fruit, erythritol or stevia can also be used as alternatives to granulated sugar. I like Lakanto brand monk fruit sweetener. It can easily be used to replace some of the sugar in a recipe. Beware, however, cookies using alternative sweeteners may become dry faster than their regular sugar sweetened counterparts.

• Upgrade your egg. Using a pasture-raised egg offers a slight nutritional advantage over a conventional egg. If you wish to make vegan cookies, replace each egg with 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/4 mashed banana or with a flax egg. Applesauce works well in cakey cookies like snickerdoodles. For chewy recipes try the flax egg. For a flax egg mix 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons warm water for each egg (up to two in a recipe). Let the mixture sit until cool before adding to your wet ingredients.

• Add some fiber. Change up your white flour for whole-wheat pastry flour as a cup-for-cup substitution. Whole wheat flour is made from the whole grain, so it contains more fiber and minerals. Whole wheat bread flour has a high protein content and will yield a tough finished cookie. Using whole-wheat flour in place of all-purpose flour gives your cookies about four times the amount of fiber in every batch.

• Mind the gluten. Gluten sensitivity is increasingly common. Luckily there are numerous alternative baking mixes available. I love to bake with almond flour and enjoy recipes from the Sweet Laurel Cookbook. You can also make your own alternative flour mix. Here is a recipe from my culinary alma mater, The Natural Gourmet Institute: try mixing 2 cups white rice flour with 2/3 cup potato starch and 1/3 cup tapioca starch. Treat this blend like it is all-purpose flour. You can also store it in an air-tight container.

• Mind the quality of your fats. Steer clear of ingredients that contain partially hydrogenated oil (or trans fats), like margarine and vegetable shortening. If you use butter, aim to buy organic cultured butter, which contains probiotics and no antibiotics. If you have a dairy sensitivity or wish to make vegan cookies, consider swapping butter or margarine for coconut oil. For every stick (1/2 cup) of butter, use 5 tablespoons coconut oil plus 3 tablespoons coconut cream. Use this for recipes that require creaming the butter and sugar together, like sugar cookies and shortbread. 

• Chocolate is your friend. There is always a bit of trial and error when experimenting with recipes. If your cookies are good but a bit less than perfect, try dipping or drizzling them with melted chocolate. When it comes to chocolate, the darker the better. Dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants.

 A PRIMER ON GLUTEN-FREE FLOURS
HOW TO REPLACE BUTTER WHEN BAKING

Prepare yourself for sugar season

Halloween marks the official start of sugar season. All of the candy from trick-or-treating gets us primed for the sugar feasting that often accompanies the holidays. Of course, a little sugar is a fun indulgence and makes life… sweeter, but with all of the upcoming office parties, happy hours and family feasts it is easy for our consumption to get out of hand. Understanding sugar and its impacts on your body can be a powerful tool in controlling your health, your weight, and your mood throughout the entire year.

What is sugar and do we need it?

Sugar is a carbohydrate that is naturally present in most whole foods. As we eat, our body produces digestive enzymes that break down these carbohydrates into simple sugars—glucose, galactose and fructose. These simple sugars are absorbed into our bloodstream and are processed by our liver. Glucose is released back into the bloodstream to fuel our cells and body.

Sugar comes in many forms. “Natural sugars” are those that come from whole foods like fruit or dairy. “Added sugars” are those that are added during manufacturing or processing. Added sugars can be natural (honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar, etc.) or processed (cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.). Added sugars may be used to balance favors, produce caramelization, act as a preservative or extend the shelf life of products. With the variety of sugar forms and the diversity or roles it plays in food production it is easy to understand why sugar has become so prevalent in our food supply. 

Regardless of the type of sugar consumed, our body eventually breaks down all sugars to the same simple forms—glucose, galactose or fructose. Natural, whole food sources of sugars are healthiest because the sugar is accompanied with fiber, water, vitamins and other nutrients that slow the absorption of sugar into our body and put less demand on our metabolism. 

What is the harm in indulgence?

I believe life is meant to be celebrated with the occasional sweet treat. Unfortunately, the average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year. That is equal to 3 pounds (or 6 cups) of sugar in one week.  There is abundant medical research that shows that frequent consumption of sugar perpetuates inflammation, weight gain, fatty liver disease and increases our risk of diabetes, heart disease, dental cavities and even Alzheimer’s disease.  

How much sugar is OK?

There are many public health organizations that weigh in on this issue. The America Heart Association, the CDC and the US Department of Health and Human Services among others, recommend no more than 36 grams of added sugar for men per day and no more that 24 grams for women and children over 2 years of age. For reference, one teaspoon of sugar equals 4 grams. It is easy to meet and exceed these recommendations, especially when that grande pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks clocks in at 50 grams per indulgence!

There is definitely a place for sugar in our lives but keeping sugar to a minimum in our everyday lives is a good idea. Reducing added sugar consumption can help minimize the risks of lifestyle related causes of death like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. 

How do you reduce your sugar intake?

Making diet changes is no small task; and there is not necessarily one right way to do it. Below is a list of suggestions that can help you minimize added sugar in your diet. 

1.     Learn the many names of sugar so you can identify it when reading labels. The food industry has become very clever in disguising sugar. Familiarize yourself with the list below.

• Agave Nectar

• Barbados Sugar

• Barley Malt

• Beet Sugar

• Brown Sugar

• Cane Crystals

• Cane Juice Crystals

• Cane Juice

• Caramel

• Carob Syrup or Sugar

• Coconut Nectar/Sugar

• Concentrated Fruit Juice

• Confectioner's Sugar

• Corn Syrup Solids

• Corn Sweetener

• Crystalline Fructose

• Dextrin

• Diastatic Malt

• Diatase

• Evaporated Cane Juice

• Florida Crystals

• Fruit Concentrate

• Glucose Solids

• Golden Sugar/Syrup

• Granulated Sugar

• Grape Sugar

• Grape Juice Concentrate

• High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

• Honey

• Icing/Invert Sugar

• Lactose (added)

• Malt Syrup

• Maple Syrup

• Molasses

• Muscovado

• Nectresse

• Palm Sugar

• Refiner's Syrup

• Rice Syrup/Malt

• Sorghum Syrup

• Sugar/Raw Sugar

• Table Sugar

• Treacle

• Turbinado Sugar

• "-ol" sugars: erythritol, ethyl maltol, mannitol, sorbitol

• "-ose" sugars: dextrose, D-mannose, fructose, galactose, glucose, maltose, sucrose

2.     Gradually cut back on sweetened foods. Strategies like replacing sugar sweetened beverages with unsweetened tea or sparkling water, opting for fruit as a dessert or reaching for a square of dark chocolate instead of a Snickers can help move the needle when addressing our sugar consumption. Over time, our palates adapt and we may no longer appreciate the super-sweet products we once loved. 

3.     Or, eliminate sugars cold turkey. This method works well for some. Opting for a 7-10 days sugar elimination diet resets the palate and can dramatically reduce sugar cravings that keep us perpetually reaching for the candy jar. Be prepared: for some people days 3-5 of this challenge feel the toughest. Hang in there.

4.     Eat protein at breakfast. A meal that includes protein, fat and fiber helps to balance your blood sugar and keep you fueled and focused during your day. When you are satiated, you are less like to eat the donut in the break room that may prime your sweet tooth for a day’s worth of binging. 

5.     Drink more water and green tea. Staying hydrated during the day means we are less likely to confuse signals of thirst for hunger. If water is too boring, try drinking your favorite tea. Green tea in particular is full of antioxidants and contains EGCG which is a natural blood sugar balancer.

6.     Get your gut checked. If you have difficulty overcoming your sugar cravings, it may not be a failure of will power. Our gut is home to trillions of organisms that are metabolically active. Pathogenic bacteria and yeast may be contributing to your cravings. Luckily, there are testing and treatment options available to address the problem organisms. 

Schedule an appointment with Relish Health to develop a personalized plan to reduce sugar.

Interested in guilt-free homemade candies? Check out these recipes:

Salted Date Caramel Turtles
Dark Chocolate Brain Bark
Chocolate Almond Butter Cups
Raw Chocolate Cherry Truffles
Check out these other sweet tooth solutions. 

Raw Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Truffles

Many foods naturally contain melatonin, one of our important sleep hormones. Research has shown that eating melatonin-rich foods can assist sleep and provide antioxidant support for our bodies. These Raw Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Truffles will not make you sleepy, but they will satisfy your sweet tooth. They are made with antioxidant and melatonin-rich tart cherries. 

Other Melatonin rich foods include:

• Fruits and vegetables (tart cherries, corn, asparagus, tomatoes, pomegranate, olives, grapes, broccoli, cucumber)

• Grains (rice, barley, rolled oats)

• Nuts and Seeds (walnuts, peanuts, sunflower seeds, mustard seeds, flaxseed)

---

Raw Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Truffles

Raw Chocolate Cherry Truffles

Makes 24 small truffles 
Author: Erica Leazenby, MD
Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pitted Medjoor dates (about 10-11)

• 2/3 cup Tart dried cherries

• ¼ cup raw almonds; toasted

• ¼ cup raw pistachios, toasted

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 1 generous pinch salt

• 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

• Cocoa powder or finely chopped almonds or pistachios for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the nuts on a baking sheet in a single layer using caution to keep them separate. Toast the nuts for 6-8 minutes or until they are lightly browned and starting to become fragrant. Note: The two nuts may be ready at different times depending on their size. 

2. Place dates, nuts, cherries, cocoa powder, vanilla and salt in a food processor. Run the machine continuously until the mixture forms a ball (approximately 1-2 minutes.)

3. With damp hands roll the mixture into 1-inch diameter balls.

4. If desired roll each truffle in cocoa powder or chopped nuts.

5. Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container and enjoy.

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Tips to Make Your Holiday Cookies More Healthy

My first memories in the kitchen involve making holiday cookies to share with friends and family. As a functional medicine physician and chef, I’ve learned a few tips to make my holiday baking traditions more health supportive. For me, the perfect cookie is baked with minimally-processed ingredients, yet has crispy, lightly golden edges with rich flavor and just the right amount of sweetness. Here are some easy substitutions you can do at home this holiday season to bring a bit more nutrition to your favorite cookie recipes:

• Start with the best ingredients. Of course, the quality of the finished product is only as good as the ingredients you start with. Aim to use fresh organic ingredients when possible. The holiday baking season is a great time to take inventory of the products in your pantry. Check their expiration dates and check that dried spices have not become rancid with age. Try swapping sea salt for iodized table salt and use aluminum-free baking soda. Minimize artificial ingredients that may be found in imitation extracts and food colorings.

• Replace and reduce sugar. Cookies are a treat. As a general rule, minimizing sugar in our daily routine is important for our health, but life is meant to be celebrated especially at the holidays. There are ways to cut back on sugar yet still have a tasty show-stopping cookie. Instead of icing your sugar cookies, sprinkle with nuts, orange zest, dried flowers (I love crushed rose petals), seeds or drizzle with dark chocolate. Sugar adds moisture to cookies, but you can often decrease the sugar in a recipe (up to about 25%) with little compromise. Experiment with your favorite cookie recipe. You can add in a splash of your favorite extract like vanilla, almond or lemon for a sweet confectionary flavor.

• Upgrade your egg. Using a pasture-raised egg offers a slight nutritional advantage over a conventional egg. If you wish to make vegan cookies, replace each egg with 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/4 mashed banana or with a flax egg. Applesauce works well in cakey cookies like snickerdoodles. For chewy recipes try the flax egg. For a flax egg mix 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons warm water for each egg (up to two in a recipe). Let the mixture sit until cool before adding to your wet ingredients.

• Add some fiber. Change up your white flour for whole-wheat pastry flour as a cup-for-cup substitution. Whole wheat flour is made from the whole grain, so it contains more fiber and minerals. Whole wheat bread flour has a high protein content and will yield a tough finished cookie. Using whole-wheat flour in place of all-purpose flour gives your cookies about four times the amount of fiber in every batch.

• Mind the gluten. Gluten sensitivity is increasingly common. Luckily there are numerous alternative baking mixes available. I love to bake with almond flour and enjoy recipes from the Sweet Laurel Cookbook. You can also make your own alternative flour mix. Here is a recipe from my culinary alma mater, The Natural Gourmet Institute: try mixing 2 cups white rice flour with 2/3 cup potato starch and 1/3 cup tapioca starch. Treat this blend like it is all-purpose flour. You can also store it in an air-tight container.

• Mind the quality of your fats. Steer clear of ingredients that contain partially hydrogenated oil (or trans fats), like margarine and vegetable shortening. If you use butter, aim to buy organic cultured butter, which contains probiotics and no antibiotics. If you have a dairy sensitivity or wish to make vegan cookies, consider swapping butter or margarine for coconut oil. For every stick (1/2 cup) of butter, use 5 tablespoons coconut oil plus 3 tablespoons coconut cream. Use this for recipes that require creaming the butter and sugar together, like sugar cookies and shortbread. 

• Chocolate is your friend. There is always a bit of trial and error when experimenting with recipes. If your cookies are good but a bit less than perfect, try dipping or drizzling them with melted chocolate. When it comes to chocolate, the darker the better. Dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants.  

Use your Fork to Improve your Feelings

Our brain is both our greatest asset and the home to the hungriest cells in our body. Remarkably, this 2-pound organ has energy needs similar to our body’s muscles. The complex electrical connections that occur in our brain are responsible for not only our heart beat and sensations, but also our memories and mood. The nourishment we consume at each meal provides the energy and building blocks that create the connections that constitute our brain. No matter your current state of mental health, your genetics, background or situation, the core of your personal wellness is your food.

While we may think about how to feed our muscles to maintain strength or build mass, we don’t often give much thought to what our brain may need. Below are a few guidelines that may help you nourish this underappreciate organ.

1. Your brain needs a steady source of energy. The standard American diet is known for a high sugar content. Sometimes the source of sugar is obvious like a glass of soda, but sometimes the source is less obvious like pasta or bagels. These refined foods cause your blood sugar to increase quickly. Your body responds by rapidly releasing insulin. The insulin lowers the blood sugar, but can also trigger your blood sugar crash. This process, called reactive hypoglycemia, is responsible for carb and sugar cravings which lead to anxiety, headaches, irritability, and ultimately depression. A case of the “hangries.” Cravings are your brain’s way of reminding you it needs steady fuel to function.

High blood sugar causes also inflammation, which is one of them most significant risk factors for depression. Balancing blood sugar is an effective treatment for depression and anxiety.

2. Your brain needs nutrients. Eat real food. Processed food is made from ingredients that have been stripped of their nutrients. Filling up on package lunchables or low-quality granola bars means we are missing out on many nutrients. Refined flours and sugars lack the vitamins and minerals that are contained in their whole forms. Our brain needs basic building blocks like Omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins and key minerals like magnesium and zinc to perform its basic function. Your mood is the first casually when there are insufficient levels of these nutrients. Your mental health suffers even before your physical health begins to deteriorate. A nourished brain is a resilient brain.

3. You have a second brain and it needs nourishment too. Our gut is home to trillions of bacteria. These bacteria help us absorb our nutrients, make some of our vitamins and directly communicate with our own cells to impact our immune system and mental health. Our intestinal wall is one of our borders with the outside world. The food we eat directly affects this community of organisms that have a direct connection to our brain (ever felt butterflies in your stomach or had a “gut feeling”?). A diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fiber favors the growth of bacteria that are beneficial to our overall health, while a low-fiber, high-fat diet favors the growth of less helpful species. Eating a diet rich in produce helps ensure that you get adequate nutrients and maintain this delicate and important bacterial community. Just as emotions can sent messages to your gut, food can send messages to your brain.

Delicious Treatment For Your Mood

Good Mood Food

Sweet Tooth Solutions

Are Valentine’s Day treats threatening your New Year’s resolutions for eating better? It happens to the best of us. But sugar is our health nemesis triggering increased blood sugar, inflammation and altering our immunity. Even with dessert, we can learn to love the foods that love us back. Unfortunately, refined sugars and flours don’t love us at all. However, it’s a lot easier than you think to make better after-dinner choices. Here are a few of my favorites:

1.     Pineapple and Papaya Fruit Salad

Pineapple contains bromelain and papaya contains papain; both are proteolytic enzymes meaning they help breakdown proteins and can help with digestion. As a whole we want to decrease our consumption of refined sugars. Eating fruit for dessert help us satisfy our sweet tooth, increase our fiber consumption, and in this case may give us a little boost with our digestion. See recipe below.

2.     Dark chocolate

Yep, I just gave permission to indulge in chocolate. Dark chocolate that is as least 70% or higher cocoa is rich in anti-oxidants such as polyphenols and has been associated with heart-health. Dark chocolate is often dairy free and has less sugar that its cousin, milk chocolate. Enjoy an ounce or two after a meal. Remember to take time to consume it mindfully, savoring its flavor.

3.     Peppermint tea

Like an after-dinner mint, a cup of herbal peppermint tea is a satisfying finish to a delicious meal. Peppermint has been long been attributed with many benefits like relaxation and improved indigestion, but may be just the ticket to satisfy that sweet tooth.

Try this simple fruit salad recipe to help you think outside the pastry and ice cream box for your after-dinner treats.

Tropical Pineapple and Papaya Salad

Both fresh pineapple and papaya contain active enzymes that help breakdown proteins. Rich in fiber and anti-oxidants, try eating this salad as a sweet finish to your meal.

Author: Erica Leazenby, MD

Serves: appx. 6 1-cup portions

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 small pineapple, cut into bite-size cubes

1 small papaya, cut into bite-size cubes

1 cup blueberries

Coconut whipped cream (optional)

2 tablespoons Toasted coconut (optional)

Mint leaves (optional)

Directions:

Combine pineapple, papaya and blueberries in a medium bowl. Divide the salad into small serving bowls and garnish with coconut whipped cream, mint and toasted coconut as desired.

For additional sweet tooth taming stratagies read here:

Prepare Yourself for Sugar Season

Tips To Make Your Holiday Cookies More Healthy