The day I decided to change some of my eating habits and stopped eating refined sugar I started looking for natural substitutes for it too. Since then we always joke at home saying that we love cheating on sugar because the natural one taste SO much better! That’s why I choose this title for today’s post. So as you know I first shared why I stopped eating refined sugar here but today I want to share with you a little more about the process on changing from one eating habit to another. Having this experience definitely helped me improve various of those (inexplicable) health challenges I was facing. And I just feel the need to share with you the benefits that I found by changing some of my eating habits, and hopefully everything that I’m going to share here with you today could help you (in some way) too. If so I would love to hear from you in the comments.
As I told you before taking the decision on changing this eating habit in my life was not easy task but it wasn't difficult either, I guess I was so aware about all the issues that refined sugar was causing to my health that I wanted to start learning and looking for substitutes as soon as possible. All I can say (from personal experience) is that when you decide to change certain habits to improve your lifestyle, the beginning of the transition can feel a bit overwelming (but is not like that at all) may be all these felling come because you don't know what is going to follow after that decision, and at some point may be you start questioning yourself; thinking... Am I going to be able to accomplish this?... But hey! Everything that is unknown to us always tends to create certain fears. I think it's like dating someone for the first time, uuuu ... nerves, mystery! But also eager to know how it will be?! How this new lifestyle would be…it would be great, so-so, boring, Super great?! Am I going to be able to stand this new way of eating?! So yes, I had these thoughts myself but let me tell you something that I learned since having Lia... there's nothing more challenging ( + wonderful) than the nervous (+ scared) feelings that are produced when you're about to give birth for the first time! It's natural to feel that way! (First-time Moms/ Mums Please don’t feel like your feelings are unnatural, because they don't) So going back to my point; knowing in my heart that this changing of eating habits couldn't be as hard as something more challenging like....... (Yes, you guessed...giving birth) those half questions/ half overwelming feeling + thoughts were out of my head in no time.
In a way I could say that I'm glad I had those health challenges, because they push me to step out of my comfort zone, take a step forward and start knowing more about my body and the foods that were creating positive benefits to my health and the foods that didn’t do anything good for my health too. By simply replacing artificial sugar with natural sugar, I don’t feel restricted on sugar at all on the opposite, I feel that I’m eating the right sugar, and since then I don’t feel sugar cravings and that constant need to eat something sweet, I only eat something sweet after lunch or at end of the evening. And most of the time that is enough for me. So if you're planning on changing your eating habits, all that I can say is that you don’t need to feel overwelmed, just start slowly, learn more about your body and experiment a bit with the foods you’re used to eat, see how you feel after eating them. Ask yourself what benefits these changes could bring into your life and your family? That’s the way I started my process, I am not an health expert, I'm just a Mum/ Mom sharing a personal experience and the little things that I did that helped me go through this process in a more organic way.
However, in my way of substituting refined sugar with natural sugar, I found the most indulgent sweet recipes! Really! I started seeing these raw ( + vegan + gluten free ) sweet balls/ truffles everywhere in the health movement circuit. I wanted to know more so I started trying different combos of flavours until one day yes! I finally got it right. I was totally amazed by how delicious these Choco-balls taste without any refined sugar at all. Totally homemade, wholesome, incredible easy to make and plus is a 3- ingredients recipe, plus they’re fun to make, (and you can also make these with your children. The texture feels like playdough :) ) plus your guests with look totally impressed {insert happy dancing + plus winning face here} Plus they would cheer you up after the first bite! Ok. Now going back to the the recipe, before I go, I’ll tell you that the main ingredients you would need for this recipe are only baking chocolate, almond meal and medjool dates (in spanish dátiles, yes, that's for you my spanish readers). I added a pinch of Himalayan salt and coated some of them in coconut but that is totally optional so you can make them all chocolate and if you want to give it a salty contrast and for any reason you can’t find Himalayan salt just replace it with Sea salt. Hope you enjoy making this NO- Bake sweet treat recipe!
J. want me to tell you that he is a converted to the right sugar too, and that before that he never thought healthy sweet treats would taste so good.
RAW + VEGAN
CHOCOLATE + ALMOND TRUFFLES {NO- BAKE TREATS} -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- make 10 1 1/2 Medjool Dates, (soaked in hot water for about an hour and then remove seeds)
1/2 C. Unsweeted Baking Cocoa Powder
3/4 C. Almond Meal
Desiccated Coconut (optional)
Himalayan or Sea Salt (optional)
Preparation:
> In a food processor add dates, cocoa powder and almond meal (+pinch of salt). Then pulse everything together into a paste.
> Make small-medium balls by rolling paste with your hands. Roll some of them in coconut if you like. Store in the fridge and enjoy your healthy treat!
