A favorite dessert for many people is the strawberry pretzel dessert. Although there isn't a nutrition label to read for this dessert, the ingredients can provide insight about the calories, sugar, fat, and other nutrition it may provide. There are many ways to make this dessert, but according to Taste of Home, this recipe uses pretzels, butter, cream cheese, sugar, frozen whipped topping, strawberry gelatin, and strawberries.
Fruits
Pineapple and strawberries are used in this dessert. They have powerful antioxidants to help fight off diseases, infections, and toxins in the body. Eight ounces of strawberries has 46 calories, 11 g of carbohydrate, of which 2.9 g are from fiber. Pineapple has 74 calories, 19.6 g of carbohydrates, and 2.2 g of fiber per 8 ounces. Based on a recipe from Taste of Home, 20 ounces of crushed pineapple and strawberries are used in this dessert. Vitamins A, C, and E contribute to the antioxidant proprieties in pineapple and strawberries. Also, fiber, water, natural sugar, and low in calories adds nutritional benefits to this dessert.
Fat
Butter and cream cheese contribute to the fat content. The fat content in this dessert is overtakes the nutritional content found in the fruits. Typically, a cup of butter that has 77 g of fat and a cup of cream cheese containing 80 g of fat are used to make a strawberry pretzel dessert. To lower the fat content, use light butter and fat-free cream cheese. The taste and texture may be slightly different, but it will have a lower fat content.
Sugar
Frozen whipped topping, strawberry gelatin, and sugar contribute to the sugar content. One cup of sugar has 774 calories, one box of strawberry gelatin has 320 calories with 76 g of sugar and whipped topping contributes 120 calories with 8 g of sugar. A strawberry pretzel dessert can have a high amount of calories per dish, with 894 coming from sugar. For people with diabetes or on restricted sweets diets, the strawberry pretzel dessert may have too much sugar per serving. To lower the amount of sugar without losing taste, use sugar-free frozen whipped topping, sugar-free strawberry gelatin and sugar substitutes such as splenda.
Optional Crust
According to the strawberry pretzel dessert on Taste of Home.com, 2 to 3 cups of crushed pretzels are used to make the crust. The crushed pretzels are mixed with melted butter, spread in a baking dish, and baked until set. You can may this dessert without the crust if you are on a low carb, low calorie, or gluten free diet. To reduce calories in the crust, use light butters and reduce the amount of pretzels by half.
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