Health Supportive Recipe Conversions
Sunday’s conversion class was both fun and educational! We took one recipe for a baked good in its conventional form (using white sugar, white flour etc.) and changed one ingredient each time until the finished product was vegan and more health supportive . . . oh and tasted good too!
The Teams
Jessica & Melanie – Brownies
Lois & Christine – Peanut Butter Cookies
Samantha & David – Black & White Cookies
Amy & Ali – Carrot Cake
Denise & Val – Chocolate Chip Cookies
Led by . . .
Chef “flax eye” Elliott
Here’s how we cumulatively changed the conventional chocolate chip cookie to be vegan and have more health supportive ingredients . . .
1.) Make as is recipe.
2.) Change the flour – Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
3.) Change additives – Sunspire Chips
4.) Change sweetner – Coconut or Palm Sugar
5.) Change butter – Slightly solidified Coconut oil
6.) Change egg – Flax egg
Sounds easy, but in reality we were tweaking the recipe every time we made it right down to the tablespoon of flour. Each batch came out so different so we had to keep what worked and changed what didn’t without compromising flavor or texture.
It was an excellent exercise and really opened my eyes to the process of how to change a recipe to be more health supportive.
You could imagine how many baked goods were flying around after making the same recipe 6-8 times! I can honestly say that I didn’t eat a full cookie but since Denise couldn’t taste any until the very end because she is vegan, I had to make sure everything was ok 
Luckily, Chef Elliott made a pot of his famous miso soup to alkalize us from all the sugar.
Yum!
We still have much more baking to do in the future, so we could use about 10 more gallons of it!
Have you ever tried making a baked good (sweet or savory) to be more healthy? How’d it go?
Defining A Binge
Id like to say that I am proud of myself for not bingeing on food for a little over two months.
. . . Then it occurred to me that I still may be bingeing and not realizing it.
When I was training for ‘bodybuilding’ I was on a very strict calorie limit. I was denying myself not only calories, but whole food groups! Because I didn’t truly and honestly want to be in a bodybuilding competition for me and me only, you could imagine how hard I rebelled against the whole diet process.
It’s started out with a taste of peanut butter WHILE I was preparing something bland to eat. Then I took some more. I made the food I was supposed to make but I realized that I went a little bit over my peanut butter allotment for the day with the tastes.
And then, it was as if the skies opened up. I was standing in the doorway of white and sprinted past the grey into the black door. More peanut butter was consumed. Then I’d probably make toast with butter because I love bread and couldn’t have any. I opened the same fridge that I opened literally minutes before but this time all of the food was labeled ‘vacation’ instead of ‘restriction’. Id continue to eat. It was labeled this because I continued on until I was stuffed beyond belief . . . And then I woke up as if my mind was on a vacation for a whole 10min.
I’d sprint past the grey again, this time bringing guilt and shame along. I’d stay in white room for as long as I could trying to undo the damage by further restricting and telling myself how stupid I was for not having willpower. This would last for a bit, but I always went back.
These days I can say I honestly don’t do that anymore. But what I have noticed is that I still binge but on a lesser scale. For instance when I come home for lunch I’m usually ravenous! And usually, I don’t have a solid meal prepared. So as I’m trying to figure out what I want, I usually pick at so many different things while standing. Finally I make something and when I realize what I made is not something i wanted, I pick some more.
Previously I wasn’t calling that bingeing, but you know what?
It is . . .
I may not be eating AS MUCH as I used to back in those days, but no matter if it’s a rice cake or an ice cream cake, my mind is still on vacation.
I am choosing to eat unconsciously to help deal with the fact that I didn’t spend the time to figure out what I want and actually prepare it and sit down with it.
I am choosing to eat unconciously because I don’t feel like dealing with the stress I have from work no matter how big of little it may be. I would rather move right on to eating so that I don’t have to feel the uncomfortable feeling of stress.
The funny thing is, if I had just not eaten while preparing and let myself feel the stress, by the time I actually ate, it would have passed and I would have actually enjoyed my meal and been satisfied.
I would have chosen to take care of myself and walk away feeling great about that decision and great about me!
But I Don’t . . .
The good thing is, now when I do this, my binge vacations are not alone. My Inner Voice slips into my suitcase and just observes things as they happen.
Later, I ask what it saw and it tells me all of the above.
What defines a binge for you? What do you do to learn from your mistakes?
