Talking Healthy Treats With Nutritionist Louise

Dr Sandra Cabot and nutritionist Louise Belle provide you with ideas for healthy desserts that are quick and easy. Dr Cabot also addresses some of the myths surrounding fat and sugar.

Listen to my podcast and leave a comment below if you have any questions.

DR CABOT: Hello. My name’s Dr Sandra Cabot and I’m joined today by nutritionist and chef “Yum! She can cook!” Louise Belle.

Hi, Louise.

LOUISE: Hi, Dr Cabot.

DR CABOT: We do enjoy Louise’s healthy sweet treats a lot here in our clinic. And we’re very fortunate to have her. Louise is a fully qualified nutritionist and she is in great demand by patients who want to lose weight but enjoy a sweet treat. And one of the problems we see for people is they turn to diet foods. So, soft drinks or dessert-type foods that are sweetened with aspartame. And, of course, when you have a lot of aspartame, you can get problems with your metabolism because aspartame is broken down in your body into formaldehyde, which is a preservative, and methanol, which is wood alcohol and is not good for your cells, and phenylanyline. So, this is a chemical cocktail which your body doesn’t need. And some laboratory studies have shown that mice who are fed foods with aspartame put on more weight than mice who are fed sugar. So, it really doesn’t work that well. And it doesn’t help you to get over sugar addiction.

So, Louise is going to tell us how you can make some nice sweet treats with natural sweeteners to satisfy your taste buds. Yes.

LOUISE: Yes. Thanks, Dr Cabot. So, if you are feeling like a sweet treat, there’s lots of things that you can make to satisfy those cravings that aren’t going to really spike your blood sugar levels. So, things like making a healthy pudding. So, a few of my favorite ones is an avocado chocolate pudding. And all you do is you blend up avocado and cacao powder, which is just like cocoa powder, but without the sugar. It’s the more natural version. So that, and you can add a little bit of honey or a natural sweetener, such as our Nature Sweet, which I’ll talk about a bit later. And you just mix that all up together. And then just like that, you’ve got a healthy chocolate pudding!

Or another one of my favorites is a raspberry chia pudding. And that’s just as easy. You just use a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds, half a cup of coconut milk and some fresh or frozen raspberries. And you just mix those together, let it set for a couple of hours, and you’ve got yourself a healthy pudding. So, things like that. It’s just looking at the desserts that you like to eat and how to make them a bit healthier.

DR CABOT: Could you put coconut cream? I love coconut cream.

LOUISE: Yeah, if you prefer it a bit thicker and richer, then the coconut cream is a really great substitute for the coconut milk.

DR CABOT: Then it’ll be a real creamy pudding.

LOUISE: Yeah, really creamy.

DR CABOT: And you could use different fruits, right?

LOUISE: Oh yeah, any fruit. You can substitute any fruit. You can add extra nuts and seeds. You could put coconut flakes. You can change all the ingredients around. It’s really easy. Make it a bit fun. A bit of peanut butter. You could actually make that with the chocolate one, as well. So, you can change around the flavors and make healthy desserts. So, if you do feel like something sweet, you’re not blowing out your diet and having all of this sugar, ruining all your hard work. You can have something and still enjoy it.

DR CABOT: That’s right.

LOUISE: Yeah. If you just try to make healthy swaps like that. We have a healthy sweetener called Nature Sweet Sugar Substitute. So, unlike the aspartame that Dr Cabot was talking about earlier, this natural sweetener contains sugar alcohol. So, contains four different ones, four different natural sweeteners: maltitol, erythritol, inulin and stevia. And the combination of these together makes for a really nice sweetener that doesn’t have a nasty aftertaste, like some sweeteners do. It substitutes really well, and it does bring a lot of sweetness. But obviously, without the extra calories, without the extra carbohydrates. It’s not going to spike your blood sugar. So that’s a very good alternative. If you do like to make things like biscuits or apple crumble, things that you would usually use sugar in, this is a product that you can use in replacement of that. So, for example, I’ve made an apple crumble with it and rather than stewing the apples with sugar, I use a bit of Nature Sweet and I stewed the apples, like you would with the cinnamon and a bit of nutmeg. But I used Nature Sweet. So, the stewed apples still turned out nice and sweet and really tasty, but they’re not unhealthy.

DR CABOT: And the Nature Sweet won’t have any effect on your blood sugar because the sugar alcohols are not absorbed from the intestines. So, although your taste buds have the sensation of something sweet, it’s not actually absorbed from your gut. So, that’s quite healthy. So, for people who are diabetic or people who are prone to unstable blood sugar levels or people who are prediabetic, this is excellent because it’s not going to destabilize their blood sugar and it’s not going to lead to sugar cravings.

LOUISE: Yes, that’s a really good point because we want to get rid of your sugar cravings. We want you to be able to enjoy a sweet treat without needing it all the time. So, choosing the high-protein foods and foods with lots of fiber is great. And then you can have your healthy sweet treat. We’ve got lots of recipes on our website, which is cabothealth.com au. If you go to that website, we’ve got lots of recipes. So, we’ve got ones using the Nature Sweet, so that’ll give you ideas. And just other healthy recipes, whether it be smoothies or protein balls or chocolate truffles. There’s lots of recipes for your perusal and you can feel good choosing one of those recipes. You’re choosing for something that’s healthy. So, if you’re lost for ideas, definitely check out our website and pick some healthy, yummy desserts that you can cook for you and your family and for the next birthday party.

DR CABOT: And, you know, they don’t sound difficult for someone who doesn’t want to be in the kitchen too much. Baking a whole cake, it takes a long time.

LOUISE: Yes.

DR CABOT: But can you make a cake with a Nature Sweet?

LOUISE: Yeah, you could make a cake with a Nature Sweet. There’s some pretty simple recipes that you can use that are called a mug cake. Usually, we don’t suggest using a microwave. But if you were short for time and you did feel like a cake, rather than getting a cake or a doughnut, you can make a mug cake, which basically you just use a couple of tablespoons of almond flour, some healthy oil, like olive oil or coconut oil. You use some cacao powder. You can put a bit of peanut butter, if you like that flavor, some natural sweetener and an egg or two. And you just mix it all together and put it in a mug or a ramenkin and you microwave it for like a minute or two. And it pops up, a bit of baking soda, too. Pops up and makes like a cake in a mug and literally takes a few minutes. So, healthy eating doesn’t have to be easy. Sorry, I’ll start again.

DR CABOT: You got to make it easy because people are addicted.

LOUISE: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be hard. It can be really easy. So, you’re your own barrier, really. If you just say, “Oh, it’s too hard, I can’t be bothered”, then you’re not going to make those improvements in your health. You do need to initially make a little bit of an effort, but it can be really easy.

DR CABOT: Yeah. Well, you’ve got all these recipes on the website, on Cabot Health. And even making a quick cake. I mean, that sounds like it only takes five minutes.

LOUISE: Yeah, exactly right.

DR CABOT: How easy!

LOUISE: Yeah. So easy. It couldn’t be easier.

DR CABOT: Could you use coconut flour or hemp flour, as well?

LOUISE: Yeah, a lot of those healthy recipes, you can just substitute for whichever flours you have available. And the same with the ingredients. So, usually with the dry ingredients, you can substitute for other things like shredded coconut and chia seeds or protein powder. You can usually mix and match those. And the same with, what we say, wet ingredients. So, if the recipe said coconut milk and you wanted to use almond milk or hemp milk, then you could definitely do that. If you wanted to add in a bit of fruit or some nuts or seeds. Usually, you can just add these things. So, you can get the one recipe, but you can make ten different variations of it.

DR CABOT: Yeah. And you can email Louise. And if you have a flop, don’t feel bad. Just email Louise. She’ll tell you where you went wrong. Don’t email me. I’m not good in the kitchen.

LOUISE: It’s all trial and error.

DR CABOT: Yeah, it is. You’re right. And you never give up. We see so many people who are overweight and they’ve got a fatty liver and they’re carb addicted. And then their health starts to go downhill. Because if you’ve got a fatty liver and the wrong bacteria in your gut, your immune system doesn’t work properly. And then you start to get a lot more inflammation, a lot more infections, a lot more aches and pains. And people get stuck in a rut. So, we see so many people like that and when we tell them that you really have to stop eating the carbs, they get a shock. Because they don’t realize that they’re eating too many carbs.

LOUISE: Yeah, they don’t think they are.

DR CABOT: I say to them, “You can’t have any grains.” “What? I can’t have any grains?” “Yeah, that means no wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice or corn until we get the weight off you.” But you’ve got to have these other things that you can replace those carb foods with and that’s what Louise is talking about. And some people go, “They’re all high in fat!” Coconut’s high in fat, hemp is high in fat, chia’s high fat. But fat is not as fattening as carbohydrate. Because see, fat can be used by your body for energy without requiring insulin. So, you can turn fat and protein into energy without needing any insulin at all. So, your insulin level will stay low and that will keep you in a fat-burning metabolism. So, it’s not the calories.

LOUISE: Yes, there’s a common misconception. And the thing is, fat is filling. It’s a lot more filling than carbohydrates are. And like you said, it’s not going to spike the insulin. So, it’s going to stabilize your blood sugar levels and keep you fuller for longer. So that’s why, if you had an omelette for breakfast, you would feel fuller for way longer, than if you had a bowl of Corn Flakes, for example.

DR CABOT: Yes. Or a piece of toast.

So, there’s all these tricks. You have to be smarter than your addictions. You can’t easily overcome addiction just with willpower. You’ve got to have the smarts. You’ve got to be smarter and you’ve got to be prepared and that’s what we can help you with.

So, check out Louise’s delicious recipes. And if you have any questions, feel free to email us from our websites. And thanks for listening.

LOUISE: Thank you. Bye, bye!