My 5 Minute Healthy Chocolate Fudge Recipe - Yes It’s Healthy

General No Comments »
Plate of Creamy Chocolate Fudge
Image by Vintage Home Arts via Flickr

As a Certified Nutrition Specialist, I like to find ways to prepare delicious foods that most people can’t believe are actually healthy for you. If you have a sweet tooth like me, I’m sure you’ve tried to find ways to still enjoy sweet treats, but also try to make them healthier than typical junk food desserts.

The major problem with most so-called “healthy” desserts is that most companies attempt to make them healthier by reducing the fat content and thereby increasing the sugar content or artificial sweeteners… there’s nothing healthy about either of those!

Below is my famous healthy chocolate-peanut-butter fudge recipe that takes only 5 minutes to make and is really simple. The great thing is that I use no added sugars, no artificial sweeteners, and all healthy fat sources. You’ll see why below.

My healthy chocolate-peanut-butter fudge recipe (peanut butter can be omitted if you prefer plain chocolate):

  • Extra dark chocolate bar (3-4 oz bar works well — look for at least 70% cocoa content, between 70-85% — this minimizes the sugar content)
  • 4 or 5 Tbsp of your favorite organic nut butter (almond butter, cashew butter, peanut butter all work well)
  • 2/3 to 3/4 cup of organic coconut milk (great source of healthy saturated fats from medium chain triglycerides - MCTs)
  • 2 tbsp rice bran (additional healthy fiber source)
  • 2 tbsp oat bran (more healthy fiber including soluble fiber)
  • 1/2 cup raw pecans, almonds, or walnuts (yes, more healthy fats, antioxidants, and tons of vitamins/minerals)
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins (optional based on your tastes)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • a little stevia to lightly sweeten (stevia is a natural non-caloric sweetener as opposed to harmful artificial sweeteners)

Start with the coconut milk, nut butter, and chocolate bar in a medium saucepan and put it on the lowest heat possible. Continuously stir as the chocolate, coconut milk, and nut butter melts together. Once these melt together add in all of the other ingredients and stir together very well.

Once everything is mixed well together, spread the mixture onto some waxed paper laid out in a baking dish and throw it in the fridge to solidify.

Now you have some of the healthiest chocolate fudge ever known to man!

Keep in mind that you still need to keep your serving portions small because this is still a calorie-dense snack even though it is super-healthy. The good news is that it is lower in sugar and calories than typical fudge and has loads more nutrition than any typical fudge.

Enjoy! Tell your friends that Trainer Mike Geary gave you this recipe.

Check out these 5 tips to Get a Flat Stomach faster with no bogus diet pills or useless “abdominizer” gadgets.

Good luck with your fitness goals!

Mike Geary,
Best Selling Author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs

Healthy eaters know that easily the best way to please someone dear to you is to make him a Romantic Dinner. We’ve gone one better and prepared a special collection of Romantic Dinners.

See pictures of delicious recipes and other details at:

Romantic Recipes They Love

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Cooking with Sugar Substitutes that are Healthy and Natural Sweeteners

General No Comments »
Love the sugar substitute
Image by HeyGabe via Flickr

Natural Sweeteners substitute sugar in foods and beverages making them healthier while retaining their sweet flavors. When they are manufactured and packaged, they don’t go through the amount of refining and high processing as white or brown sugars do, so they are more natural. This is because refining removes nutrients and other essential vitamins from the sugar cane juice.

To sweeten foods use a sweetener that is plant-based or honey. Since they are not processed or filtered and are plant-based they are natural sweeteners. For example, unfiltered honey has not been processed so it keeps its natural beneficial healing properties such as vitamins, and other elements that come directly from nature. Manufacturers tend to avoid most using the same refining processes as the ones used when refining regular sugar. This is in order to retain as much of the natural properties as possible. Additionally, minimally processed sugar cane juice has micro nutrients that aid in the proper digestion of sweeteners. Sugars that are refined, such as regular white sugar, and brown sugar, are stripped of micro nutrients, which in turn gives us empty calories in non-nutritive and potentially hazardous foods.

When choosing a sugar substitute for tea or coffee and other recipes, there are many healthy choices that can make a big difference for your health. Since natural sweeteners have equal amounts of glucose and fructose, as nature intended, then the body can easily metabolize and use the energy in a controlled manner. For example, honey gets its sweetness from the mono-saccharides fructose and glucose. In equal amounts, it has the same sweetness factor as granulated sugar (regular and brown). They sweeten like sugar because of the same amounts of glucose and fructose contents in them. Using artificial sweeteners to substitute sugar is not a good health decision because they contain high amounts of fructose. Fructose can block healthy digestion and does not allow the body to regulate the blood sugar appropriately.

There are many health benefits when you replace regular granulated white or brown sugar with natural sweeteners. You are getting natural foods because they are minimally refined from their natural state. Also, you will be more awake and not suffer from sleepiness during the day, will enjoy better digestion and your will more in touch with nature’s foods. Granulated white or brown sugar, has been through a process that strips all the nutritional value and when consumed in large amounts can be very harmful to your body and lead to diabetes.

Mama Healthy provides healthy ways to substitute sugar with Honey Crystals, a healthy alternative to sweeten foods and beverages in foods, beverages, and everyday cooking recipes => http://www.mamahealthy.com/organic-honey-crystals

Article Source: ArticleSpan


Easily the best way to please someone dear to you is to make him a Romantic Dinner. We’ve gone one better and prepared a special collection of Romantic Dinners.


See pictures of recipes, along with user comments and more details at

Recipes They Love

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Lose Body Weight - Eating Healthy is a Good Start to a Better Lifestyle

General No Comments »
A weighloss pyramid, made on the food/weighlos...
Image via Wikipedia

Are you looking for a basic guideline and diet to follow as you determine which approach to use to lose body weight? If you want to obtain true weight loss you have to eliminate all of the processed foods, sodas, cookies, artificial sweeteners, and pastries. This is a good starting point because it cuts out all the toxins. Cutting out the toxins helps facilitate your body to remove unwanted fat that builds up in your body over time. This is one of the many secrets to losing body weight and keeping it off for good. If you put garbage in, expect the output to be garbage.

For example, you buy a very expensive car that needs only a certain type of gas to run at its optimal level. You did just as you were told and filled it up with the specific gas. Your car runs beautifully. Then one day, you decided, I am going to use this other gas it shouldn‘t make a difference. You kept doing this for 2 months, and then you started to notice that it wasn‘t running like it used to. You ignored the signs of the car getting progressively worse, and then you go to start the car and it will not run. As the proper gas was needed for the car to run smoothly, the same holds true for your body. If you continue to fuel your body with the wrong type of nutrients your body will eventually break down and not work at its optimal level.

The change of diet will be hard at first, but you will lose body weight and you will have more energy and less fatigue. I am not saying you can never eat any of these foods again, but it is best to decrease as much as possible to reap the most benefits you can. There is no single diet that is right for everyone but there is a diet that is perfect for you. There is an ideal balance of the macro-nutrient proteins, carbohydrates, fats that suits your body‘s specific biochemistry. Adjusting your eating patterns towards the balance of foods appropriate for your metabolic type can bring about noticeable improvements in your body and mind. Eating the wrong foods may cause unpleasant temporary symptoms such as lack of energy, irritability, depression, sweet cravings or indigestion. The long-term effects of an unbalanced diet can be much more serious, and result in chronic disease.

People experience different learning curves when it comes to changing their eating habits. You may ask now what? This is such a daunting task. How am I going to do this? First, take a deep breath. It is going to be OK! I am going to give you a method to do this change easily and with as little discomfort as possible. No matter how effective a plan is over the short-term, you have wasted your time, effort, and money if you have to start from the beginning over and over again. Make sure that the plan you choose helps you lose body weight, emphasizes permanent weight loss, and has a system to support your efforts until you are comfortable doing it alone.

The truth is you don’t need such-n-such medical agencies or some’ muscle head’ at the gym telling you a bunch of fluffed up statistics and misleading numbers about calories and carbs. All you have to do is begin the process, take charge of your life, and stop thinking I can’t lose body weight. Start taking action if you want to improve your health and lifestyle and begin losing weight.

Article Source: ArticleSpan

See pictures of recipes, along with user comments and more details at

Healthy Eating

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

WP Theme & Icons by N.Design Studio | Entries RSS Comments RSS Log in