It’s Valentine’s Day today, and to celebrate, Linda wanted to make a dessert of some sort, preferably of the chocolate variety. Of course, for me, dessert is a difficult thing because it usually comes with three main foes: sugar, refined flour, and saturated fat. So, would it be possible to make something even resembling dessert without those ingredients, or at least as little as possible?  The answer is yes, and not only is this not bad for you, it’s actually good for you. Why? Because unsweetened cocoa powder is full of ingredients that have great health benefits.

Linda decided to make chocolate pudding and adapted a recipe that serves 6 and would normally contain 2/3 of a cup of sugar and an egg which includes the yolk. By replacing the sugar with Splenda, using only the egg white instead of the whole egg, and using nonfat milk, all in all, the nutritional information on this dessert is quite decent for those trying to eat well.

Here is the recipe:

1 large egg, white only
2 1/4 cup nonfat milk (divided)
2/3 cup Splenda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Lightly beat egg-white in a medium bowl. Set to the side.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cup milk, 1/3 cup Splenda, and salt in medium saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
3. Whisk remaining 1/3 cup Splenda, cocoa powder, and cornstarch in a medium bowl. Whisk in the remaining 3/4 cup of milk until blended.
4. Add cocoa mixture to saucepan, whisking constantly, for approximately 3 minutes or until thickened and shiny.
5. Add a small amount of the cocoa mixture to the beaten egg-white. Pour this egg mixture back into the saucepan on the stove.
6. Whisk constantly until steaming and thickened, about 2 minutes. Do not boil.
7. Add vanilla and serve.

This can be served warm or cold. We found that it was very tasty to dip pieces of fresh apple into the warm pudding, kind of like a chocolate fondue. Of course, you can try many different fruits, like strawberries or bananas etc.

Nutrition information (per serving, total yield is 6 servings)

74 Calories, 2 grams Total Fat, 1 gram Saturated Fat, 14 grams Total Carbohydrates, 4 grams Dietary Fiber, 6 grams Sugar, 6 grams Protein

If you are even considering trying to become healthy, which if you aren’t, then start for God’s sake, then you must learn how to cook. It’s not even an option. I can make quite a certain blanket statement that if you eat out, you will face culinary dietary gloom. There’s simply no doubt. Restaurants are paid by how much you like their food and do you know how they make sure you like their food? Butter. Lots and lots of butter. Any cook will tell you just how essential butter is to restaurant cooking. And butter is just the beginning. After that, you put in a ton of salt, and add as much sugar as you can, and oil, if you have it, or cream, if it calls for it or even if it doesn’t.

Even once you learn how to cook, you are going to have to learn another thing – how to modify recipes. When you see that something is going to need 2 tablespoons of oil, you’re going to have to switch that to 1 teaspoon of oil.

I thought having to cook was going to be a big pain in the rear. In a lot of ways it was, in the beginning. Cutting, chopping, mincing ingredients, getting the right cookware, making a mess in the kitchen, cleaning up everything afterward. It’s time consuming and tiring work. And when you work with new recipes, not knowing what you are doing, sometimes you will cook something that doesn’t taste too good. However, over time, you will find gems. You will find recipes that are excellent nutritionally as well as tasty. You just have to be patient.

The strategy that I recommend when switching to a healthy lifestyle is two-pronged. The first strategy is changing all the food you eat to homemade. I recommend that if you eat out more than once a week, try to cut it down to only once a week. Don’t worry too much for the first 2 weeks about what you are eating at home, as long as you prepare it yourself, mostly from scratch. Try to avoid processed foods. By processed foods, I mean stuff like frozen dinners, frozen croissants, ice cream preparations, cakes, pies, etc. Try to make stuff from scratch. For the first two weeks you don’t need to worry too much about nutrition. What you need to focus on is actually cooking at home and making that a priority. That will get you used to stocking up on ingredients and planning meals.

The second strategy to employ while working on the first one is to become a nutrition expert. This blog will certainly help and put you in the right direction. You need to learn how to read nutritional labels. You need to be able to be able to read them well, and fast. You need to understand fats, carbohydrates, and proteins thoroughly, and to a lesser degree a little bit about vitamins, minerals, salt, and fiber. You need to understand all the ingredients and which ones are good for you and approximately how much of each you should try to get in a day. When I say 9-11 servings of fruits and/or vegetables a day, you should have some idea of what a serving size is. The key here is not to get too stressed out initially, because the material can get overwhelming. And reading labels can get overwhelming. And frustrating. And tedious. And make you want to pull your hair out and drive to Wendy’s and eat a double-double with cheese, a large Coke and fries. But don’t do that!

Remember that you are going to spend the first 2 weeks to a month focusing on cooking at home. While you are working on cooking the meals, you will also learn about nutrition.

Once you learn about nutrition, all you have to do is start breaking down recipes to get their nutritional content, and once you do that, you are well on your way to planning your meals and enjoying healthy cooking while losing weight, and becoming healthy and robust in spirit and physique!

Bon Appetit!