VEGAN CHOCOLATE CHIP CHEESECAKE CUPS | Original Recipe and Photos | VEGAN, ORGANIC, NO PROCESSED SUGARsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #food7 years ago (edited)

Happy Tuesday guys!

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Guess what? Sugar in moderate amounts is okay, as long as it’s natural, unprocessed, healthy sugars.

Surprising statement?

I'm amazed at how often people are surprised by this statement, and think that as long as they stay away from any and all sweets they're being "healthy". But there's just so much more to it than that. I mean I used to think this too!

Take it from someone who quit eating any an all added sugar for the better part of a year. Yep that's right. No sugar, no maple syrup, no brown rice syrup. No added sweetener. Just natural sugars from fruits and other foods.

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Why I quit sugar

The reason I quit was that I was gaining a lot of weight from excess added sugar in my daily foods and coffee. And I had not realized this but I was consuming way over my recommended daily intake of sugar. And this was predominantly the main reason for my weight gain.

Recommended daily intake of added sugar

But it's actually not that hard to do. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugar women should consume in a day is 100 calories per day (which is 25 grams or 6 teaspoons), and for men it’s 150 calories per day (which is 37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons).

So now let's take a small mocha frappucino at Starbucks: 42 g of sugar. One can of coke: 33g of sugar. 1 serving of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream 27 g of sugar.

So okay, what happens if we consume too much sugar in the body? Well, if our body doesn't use all the energy that it gets from the sugar, then it gets stored as fat throughout the body.

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I was basically running my body from one sugar crash to the next. What do I mean by this? Well I would have a bunch of sugar in my coffee, then I would experience the crash (low energy and completely wiped out), and then I would have my next sugar-loaded coffee to recover from the crash, and so on... And gaining a ton of weight from all the excess sugar in the process.

Natural sweeteners

Well, I've since discovered that natural organic sugars that are unprocessed or minimally processed, don't do this to me. There's no crash, and no excessive weight gain, as long as I consume them in moderation (25 g per day). There's also no desperate cravings for more sugar and junk, which processed sugar can often bring about.

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A bit of sugar's history

Did you know that in the 1800's sugar was classified as a drug, and in some towns it was only sold behind the counter in apothecaries.

Ensuring I eat natural sweeteners

So by creating these guilt-free sweet treats with natural sweeteners, I'm getting my sweet kick, but without all the terrible side-effects of processed sugar. And this is also why I started developing my own recipes and blogging about them. I find that if I can control everything that goes into my treats, that's the best way to ensure they're healthy. And now you guys can do the same.

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Cashews, the healthy nut

These cheese cakes are loaded with cashews. Although, cashews are low in fiber, they are a very healthy superfood for a number of reasons. Firstly, they contribute to eye health, they help prevent heart disease and diabetes, and are an excellent source of good fats which assists with metabolism and weight loss. And they're loaded with protein. There's about 40 g of protein in one cup of cashews.

Here's how I did it

Ingredients

For the base

2 cups oats ground (measure before grinding)
2 tbsp organic maple syrup
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted (I used Bulletproof XCT coconut oil, no melting required)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 bananas
2 tbsp peanut butter (can also use any other type of nut butter)

For the "cheese"

1 cup raw cashews soaked
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp organic maple syrup

Directions

The first thing you're going to do is soak your cashews for 6 - 7 hours or overnight. Then once these are ready, preheat your oven to 350 F. Then in a large mixing bowl mash up your bananas. Add your ground oats, maple syrup, coconut oil, cinnamon, salt, and peanut butter. Mix until well combined.

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Then put the batter in paper muffin cups in a muffin tin. Fill up the paper cups about 1/3 with the base. Then bake for 10 minutes.

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While that's baking, put your soaked cashews in a blender. And blend, while stopping every so often to add small amounts of water (about 1/4 cup in total). This will help the cashews blend to a smooth, creamy texture. Then add in your maple syrup and lemon juice and blend until well combined.

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Then once your base is done, pour on your "cheese" cake topping into each muffin cup (filling up the other 2/3 of the muffin cups). Then sprinkle on some cacao nibs for your chocolate chips. Freeze for 1 hour. Eh voila!

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Store cheese cakes in freezer for up to a week. And when taking them out let them thaw out for about 5 minutes. Each cake has 2 tsps of maple syrup, 6.5 g of protein and is 280 calories.

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If you liked this don’t forget to vote, follow and comment! And thank you for all your continued support!

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Recipe and photos are mine and original. Shot on iPhone 7 Plus.

You can also connect with me on Instagram

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And for more of my clean and healthy recipes click the links below:

Sweet Potato Salad with Arugula, Sunflower Seeds and Goat Cheese

Chocolate Ginger Cookies

Green Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie

Banana Nut Butter Crepes

Cinnamon Chia Overnight Oats

Zucchini Fritters and Homemade Tzatziki

Mint Chocolate Coconut Bark

Strawberry Partfait Bars

Vegan Pizza and Homemade Pesto

Raw Chocolate Fudge Bites

Double Chocolate Banana Muffins a.k.a Chocolate Banana Bread

Chocolate Avocado Pudding

Chocolate Sweet Potato Brownies

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Donuts


Sources:

http://www.raggedsoldier.com/sugar_history.pdf
http://www.healthline.com/health/are-cashews-good-for-you

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My maternal grandfather is a sweet maker, and he has been doing it for the last 70 years. I have always been around different Indian sweets, and yes I am a little over weight for my height and age.

Sugar is bad for our health, and if not monitored it might complicate our health. Since the last few months I have been trying not to eat sweets, but then I end up eating a little.

I once watched a documentary called Sugar and t showed how sugar affects our health.

Yes exactly. That's why after processed sugar binging, and then quitting completely, I've settled on only eating natural sugars. And doing that in moderation. Thanks for taking the time to read my post :) I also checked out your recent blog about writing, and thought there were some really great tips there. Followed for more :)

Here’s the link to the documentary about Sugar: That Sugar Movie.

When I saw this little movie, I did a small experiment with my Sugar intake and overall diet. I removed all the processed food, sugar, salty, tasty chips and fried things, coffee and all forms of soft drinks including the so called healthy fruit juices.

The things that I ate included fresh fruits, sprouts, fibrous vegetables, Indian flat bread and lightly cooked vegetables and a little rice.

The only exercise I did was taking stairs at least four times a day to my fourth-floor apartment. And surprisingly I had lost at least 3-4 Kg weight in just about a month without any hard work.

It is not surprising that I could not stick to that diet, you cannot live for long without the finger licking KFC buckets and mouth watering Big Mac Burgers at MacDonalds. Someday I am going to write about my experiments with my food.

Thanks for the comment, upvote and follow. I have followed you and will be waiting for more stuff from you.

Thank you.

Thanks for the link. That's an impressive challenge to put yourself through. I was on a very similar diet when I quit sugar, and still try to stick to foods that I know what the ingredients are, and that consist mainly of whole foods. And I stay away from fast food almost entirely. I would definitely enjoy reading more about your experiments with food. Cheers! :)

So much useful info in all your post dear @natashahall ! I sincerely enjoy each one of your recipe! Truly amazing! Keep up the amazing job!
I have to take some of the advice on sugar though, i intake too much infact!
@progressivechef

Thanks for the amazing feedback @progressivechef! I appreciate all your support :)

Looks delicious! this isn't the first time you made me hungry :D Thanks for sharing

Thanks so much!

you actually made me hungry.

Yay that's what I was going for lol! :)

Good gracious! I needs something sweet now!

Not a big fan of sweet, always pick the salty option... but your presentation is irresistible!

Perhaps I can indulge for one day :)

Lol do it! It's healthy :) I like to think of this one as a food dessert. Because it's like a meal. It's filling and it's not very sweet, but just enough.

Upvoted great post thank you

Looks amazing :D makes we want to eat :P

This really looks so delicious and amazing that I feel like eating them all at once. :P
Well, I really liked this blog and I think this recipe is quite good. Will definitely try it one day. :D

Thanks for the lovely feedback :)

Amazing recipe! I'm sure it's delicious! :)

Thanks @nikolina! Thanks for stopping by :)

Hmmm... I have almost all of the ingredients for these and they look delicious! I'll have to try making them myself! Thank you for sharing the recipe :)

Awesome! Let me know how it goes :)

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