A Really and Truly
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Just For You.
I found this healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe online recently, and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to break it apart and see how healthy it really is. You can see MY revised healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe at the bottom of the article. Healthy Choco Chip Cookie Recipe * 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1 cup oat flour
* 2 tsp. baking powder
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
* 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup nonfat milk
* 5 oz. Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips (or your favorite bittersweet chocolate chips)
Read original article with full recipe.
BabyCakes Bakery - New York
BabyCakes, a famous New York healthy bakery, frequented by the stars, espouses the following healthy mantra."In a city dominated by cupcakes overflowing with sugar, flour and buttercream, it’s easy for those with persnickety diets to feel left out. BabyCakes offers all-natural, organic and delicious alternatives free from the common allergens: wheat, gluten, dairy, casein and eggs. Rest assured, all sweeteners have been chosen responsibly and used sparingly. White sugar will never be found in our bakery, nor will we ever use toxic chemical sweeteners. Instead, most products are sweetened with agave nectar—a natural syrup from a cactus which is low on the glycemic index and often a safe alternative to most non-insulin dependent diabetics. Occasionally, unprocessed and unrefined sugar is used in certain goods, although sparingly. Erin McKenna, Founder, BabyCakes NYC™
Healthy Cookie Analysis
So, with that BabyCakes statement as our benchmark, let's get started on this healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe analysis. I will also include some information from Dr. Ray Strand's Healthy for Life Program (www.releasingfat.com) as we analyze the ingredients in this recipe.
Flour in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
I agree with the recipe creator, in that the wheat must be whole grain. In other words, the germ and the husk must not have been removed. The flour can be ground smooth, but these elements are critical in ensuring that the flour is not overly processed, which would cause rapid spikes in your blood sugar creating unnecessary oxidative stress and increasing your risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.However, many people are allergic to wheat and gluten, so it may be best to avoid wheat and try some other type of whole grain flours. If you can get sprouted (for improved digestibility), ground smooth, whole grain flour that is not wheat-based, you would have the best of the best in terms of the flour. This recipe suggests oat as a secondary flour, which would make these chocolate chip, oatmeal cookies. You could also try spelt, quinoa or others. Babycakes does recommend that gluten-free flours need some stickiness and so you would need to add something like xanthum gum to get the dough to stick together properly. Lastly, you should never use commercially-processed wheat of any kind, since it is absolutely filled with chemicals.
Baking Powder in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
You want to make sure your baking powder is aluminum free, unlike most store bought baking powders. Heavy metals simply cause lots of free radicals to be produced in your body. I found
this recipe
to help you make your own, homemade baking powder. Another solution is to simply buy a brand of baking powder that is aluminum free. They are not hard to find. The specific ingredient you want to avoid is called "sodium aluminum sulfate" and may be linked to the development of Alzheimer's Dementia later in life.
Salt in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Table salt is usually iodized, a practice that began during WW1 because many people suffered from iodine deficiency, which could then lead to thyroid problems or goiter. Thankfully, there are many natural ways to get iodine, such as through saltwater fish and vegetables. The iodine issue really only affected those living in the mid-west region of the USA, but later iodized salt began to be sold worldwide. Try sea salt and grind it yourself or even better, try Himalayan salt. If you need to eat less salt in your diet, you can experiment with herbs and spices for most types of savory cooking or with potassium chloride in baking.
Nutmeg and Cinnamon in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Nutmeg seems an all around healthy and safe flavoring and even has medicinal properties. Like most spices, it does not become a problem unless it is consumed in large quantities.Cinnamon, can be unhealthy, depending on where it is grown. The difficult component is called coumarin, which in large quantities, can be toxic. You want to avoid Cassia cinnamon and stick to Ceylon cinnamon, which is far lower in coumarin. Unfortunately, most cinnamon, commercially available in North America, is the Cassia variety, so it may take a little effort to locate Ceylon cinnamon. An even simpler idea is to find another flavoring.
Butter in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Butter is a fat derived from animal sources and so is classified as a saturated fat (SATFA). As a rule, SATFA's are bad, bad, bad for most systems in your body. A far better selection is olive oil, but you even have to be careful with this since oil processing can turn a good, healthy substance into a very bad substance. The fat you want to cook/bake with is vegetable oil. Look for oils that are cold-pressed or pure expeller-pressed. If you can afford organic and cold or expeller-pressed, that is even better.Don't let margarine fool you, either, since it is usually hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated. You may as well be eating poison. Some margarine companies are now selling non-hydrogenated margarine, but be careful because the oil is still heat-pressed or heavily processed in another way and they often add one or both of the only vegetable oils that contain saturated fat. These are palm oil and coconut oil and they are added to get the oil to harden a little. The only fats that will harden to a point of being spreadable are SATFA's. It's far better to adapt your healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe to use just the raw oils and forget about the spreadability issue altogether.
Sugar and Sweeteners in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
There is nothing healthy about brown sugar, It is refined white table sugar with a little molasses mixed in. Sugar is highly addictive and this one ingredient will spike your blood sugar wreaking havoc on your pancreas.Lets' talk about some far better choices. One solution is to use pure, organic date sugar. Essentially this is dehydrated and ground up dates. This one even looks a lot like brown sugar but the sugar molecule is fructose instead of glucose and sucrose and therefore it has a far lower glycemic index number. Another choice is stevia mixed with inulin. Both of these are natural herbs with no calories and no ability to spike your blood sugar. Stevia, by itself, is too sweet to bake with in the quantities needed to bulk up the recipe, so with inulin added, you get the bulk and the sweetness with the health challenges. A third choice is agave nectar. This stuff is more like a syrup or honey but it has a far lower glycemic index number and of course the sugar molecule is fructose, which is healthier. If your goal is healthy or healthier, you should avoid all chemical sweeteners like the plague. This includes Saccharin, Splenda, Nutrasweet, and Aspartame. Erythritol and Xylitol are a little better, but not much.
Eggs in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
You can tell how good and fresh an egg is by the color of the yolk. Chickens fed good quality feed that are allowed to roam free in the pasture (free range) are always going to be your best bet. You can get these in the store, but they are usually very old and stale, which is why the yolks have gone to a light yellow shade. Given the high expense of store-bought, free range, organic eggs, it is a far better idea to source a local farm so that your free range, organic eggs are fresh too. There is nothing healthy about eggs from commercially grown chickens.When it comes to eggs, many people are afraid of the cholesterol in the yolks. There is new research on cholesterol and what people need to understand is that cholesterol is not bad, not the LDL or HDL. What is bad is when cholesterol becomes oxidized by free radicals. Choosing to eat healthier, by using my revised healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe, you are already well on your way to winning the war against free radicals, plus there are lots of health benefits to eating healthy eggs.
Milk in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Once again, milk is an animal product and so contains saturated fats (SATFA's). You can buy skim milk to get rid of this challenge to some degree, but I find that replacing the milk with unsweetened, original almond milk does an excellent job of solving the milk issue and the flavor is still excellent.This is particularly important because many people are lactose intolerant or are allergic to casein (found in milk).
Chocolate in a
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Last, but not least, is the chocolate. For the most part, chocolate is not healthy in any way, shape or form. However, recently, many scientific studies are pointing to the fact that, if processed correctly, chocolate can be very healthy indeed. The important factors are the percentage of cocoa in the chocolate, the way the cocoa is processed and what is added to the cocoa. Healthy chocolate should contain at least 70% pure, unprocessed cocoa powder from cacao plant. There should be no fillers in it and it should be sweetened with natural sweeteners like cane juice or agave nectar. When it is made in the correct way, chocolate has many health benefits because cocoa is one of the highest antioxidant-containing foods ever found in nature.The XOCAI brand, available below, contains different health-enhancing ingredients, depending on which product you buy. For example, the orange-flavored chocolate contains healthy omega 3 fatty acids and the product called Xobiotic contain probiotics to help create healthy bacteria in your body. The nuggets and the power squares also have healthy ingredients like Acai berry and blueberry, which are also high in antioxidants. The best part is that all of the Xocia products are great-tasting.
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
REVISED
* 1 cup SPROUTED, WHOLE GRAIN flour
* 1 cup SPROUTED, WHOLE GRAIN oat flour
* 2 tsp. ALUMINUM-FREE baking powder
* 1/2 tsp. salt OR POTASSIUM CHLORIDE
* 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
* 1/4 tsp. CEYLON cinnamon
* 1/2 cup COLD-PRESSED OLIVE OIL
* 3/4 cup STEVIA/INULIN OR DATE SUGAR OR AGAVE NECTAR
* 1 FREE RANGE, ORGANIC & FARM FRESH egg
* 1/4 cup UNSWEETENED, ORIGINAL ALMOND milk
* 5 oz. XOCAI CHOCOLATE CUT INTO CHIP-SIZED PIECES
With the stevia/inulin combo, you have use about half as much as you would the brown sugar. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together flours, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. In a large mixing bowl, cream the oil and sweetener together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then the almond milk. Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes or until browned around the edges. Makes 36 cookies. So now that you know what it would take to make a healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe, you can free to experiment in your own kitchen.
GET XOCAI HEALTHY CHOCOLATE NOW!
Return to Top of Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.
|
