Valentines without sugar via Paper-Pixie

A Valentines without sugar seems impossible given all of the chocolate and candies we are bombarded with at the stores.

Most of the candy we buy, our favorites are those little valentines hearts, are 90%+ sugar. Basically they form sugar into a shape, add some artificial flavors and colours, and then call it valentines candy. The same goes for chocolate. Have you ever heard yourself saying “I’m craving some chocolate”. Most of us have and you’re probably not craving chocolate. You’re actually craving sugar!!

You see the first ingredient in most chocolate we buy is sugar – the ingredient that is the highest in quantity. You’ll be lucky if you get cocoa mass or cocoa butter in the top 5 ingredients but what you will get most of in chocolate is sugar! If you want to know what real chocolate tastes like, the kind that has all of the antioxidants in it, go to the baking section of your grocery store and buy 100% chocolate. This contains ONLY chocolate and will taste nothing like the chocolate that most of us buy.

We as a society crave, and are addicted to, sugar and of course this has many drawbacks to our health which have been discussed in previous blogs we have written. So how do you have a valentines without sugar and still feel like you are having a treat. Well there are many creative solutions.

For those of you that want chocolate you can buy that 100% chocolate, melt it down in a pot on the stove and then add a sweetener such as stevia or xylitol to it. These sweeteners won’t spike the glucose levels in your blood the same way sugar will. You can then sweeten the chocolate to whatever level you desire. Take the melted chocolate and eat it as is, put it into molds to create some cool shapes, or just let it harden and break it off into chunks.

Another great treat is to cook some frozen berries in a pot such as blueberries. Often when cooking blueberries we find they taste even sweeter than when they were raw. Take these cooked berries and dump them over some plain frozen yogurt for a yummy treat. Or let them cool in the fridge for a couple of hours and they will form a jelly like substance. Then you can mix them in with some plain greek yogurt to make a sweet, creamy treat.

Both of these options are very easy to do and give you great healthy alternatives to commercial grade candy that you buy in the store. They will taste great as well. There are many other things you can do. Just keep the mindset that you are trying to avoid excess sugar, artificial flavors and colors that most products contain in stores. For more information on great recipes and food ideas from our Cardio Blast Meal Plan please visit www.blog.cardioblast.com.