Common desserts like cake, pastry and ice cream often contain ingredients that provide little nutrition and, in excessive amounts, may be detrimental to your health. Finishing up your meal with something sweet doesn't have to be unhealthy, though. As with any food, moderation is key. Choosing low-calorie, low-fat desserts or modifying your dessert recipes can also give you healthier ways to enjoy an after-meal treat.
Less Healthy Dessert Choices
While not all desserts are unhealthy, eating too many desserts high in added simple sugars, such as table sugar, may harm your health. Too much sugar in your diet may increase your risk of excess weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, warn University of Alabama health experts. Large amounts of sugar in your diet can deplete your body of B vitamins, too. Commercial baked goods may contain trans fats, such as partially hydrogenated oils, which can raise your low-density lipoprotein, or bad, cholesterol level and increase risk of cardiovascular disease.
Desserts in Your Diet
Banning your favorite sweets from your diet may lead you to binge on them later. By factoring desserts into your diet, you can enjoy after-dinner treats in moderation without harming your health. On a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, you have 267 discretionary calories, but no more than half of those should come from added sugar like that found in candy, cake, ice cream and other sweets. At 2,000 calories a day, you'll need around 225 to 325 g carbohydrates, primarily from whole grains, beans, vegetables and fruits. Simple carbohydrates like those in sweets should comprise only 10 percent of your total carbohydrate intake. If you buy packaged baked goods, choose those without trans fats.
Healthier Dessert Options
Naturally sweet fresh fruits like berries, melons, peaches and bananas make ideal nutritious desserts. Pair fruit with ice cream or frozen yogurt for a little extra calcium. For low-fat alternatives to these, try fruit sorbet or gelatin instead. If you're craving baked goods, skip the sugary cakes and indulge in fruit, pumpkin or rhubarb pie, oatmeal raisin cookies or fig bars. While these baked desserts still contain sugar and simple carbohydrates, the fruits and vegetables in these foods provide at least some nutrients.
Reducing Sugar and Fat
Reducing the sugar and fat in your recipes can help you create healthier desserts at home. In dessert recipes, you can safely reduce sugar by 25 to 30 percent without impairing the recipe's outcome, advise Ohio State University health experts. So if a recipe calls for 1 cup sugar, try using only 2/3 cup. Adding add vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon or nutmeg can enhance sweetness without adding calories. To reduce fat, use 25 percent less fat, such as butter, oil or shortening, than the recipe calls for. Alternatively, you can replace half the fat with applesauce or prune puree, but you may need to shorten the baking time by 25 percent.
References
- University of Alabama: Sugar (Heart Health)
- The Franklin Institute Online: Micronutrients---Maintaining the Oxygen Balance in Your Brain
- Harvard University: The Nutrition Source Shining the Spotlight on Trans Fats
- MayoClinic.com: Healthy Diet Nutrition Guidelines
- University of Cincinnati; Recommended Carb Intake for Female Dieters?; Lisa Cicciarello Andrews; June 12, 2000
- Ohio State University; Modifying a Recipe to be Healthier; Pat Brinkman, Cheryle Jones Syracuse
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