The sweet responds to an innate attraction of man because then give it up?
There is no reason to give it up permanently, just to ally our bit greedy child of sweets with the responsible party attentive to our health that chooses consciously and knows that there is a big difference between an industrial and a homemade sweet snack made with rich whole organic ingredients fiber and the right amount of fat and sugar.
The sugary flavor and slightly wet softness of sweets on the market accustomed to “no” chew and flatten the taste making it difficult to tell the difference between sweet and sugary, between the soft and chewy, between crumbly and sandy.
Re-educate the taste and change the way of making sweets it is not an immediate thing takes time for understanding, curiosity and spirit of discovery to approach new flavors and textures or forgotten.
We are not we eat sugar, but the sugar that we eat
Because some nutritionists argue that?
White sugar is a refined chemical that has lost all the vitamins and minerals and during the digestive process consumes some of the vitamins and minerals present in the human body not only is also addictive, eliminating white sugar is the first of those who obiettivio care about their health.
To produce natural sweet sweeteners exist, undergoing minor or no chemical treatments, which can substitute white sugar, but no one has a sweetness identical because each sweetener has its intrinsic characteristic, which is difficult to repeat.
In order to balance the replacement for white sugar we must know the characteristics of sweeteners:
- their sweetening power
- the percentage of water that contain
- how their aroma can affect the final taste of the cake
and not only, some sweeteners such as malt, syrups, or dried fruit pâtes perform other key functions:
- help the leavening of sweet and savory baked products
- aggregate and emulsify by replacing the task of eggs and dairy products, which are fundamental in the preparation of veggies, sauces and baked goods.
Agave juice or syrup
It is extracted from the nectar of the blue agave roots (Agave tequilana weber), a plant native to Mexico. Contains about 80% sugar the rest is water. When you replace the sugar with this sweetener to prepare the baked goods to avoid burning them, lower the cooking temperature by 25 ° C.
Amasake
food preparation obtained from the fermentation of whole sweet rice with mushroom koji (Aspergillus oryzae), the same used for the production of miso.
Dried fruit
Is perfect to sweeten the dough and also has a binding power. Having a high concentration of sugar is best to avoid consuming it as such in large quantities, such as raw food chefs teach you can turn into a “pâté dried fruits” this is my favorite recipe.
Coconut sugar
Made from palm flowers also known as Gulamerah Bali. Can replace 1: 1 sugar.
Concentrated fruit juices
Consistency of honey-like substance obtained by concentration, by means of heat. Due to its composition it has a higher sweetening power of the traditional sugar. If the fact that at equal weight to confer about 15% of liquid in more is used in replacement of sugar it is good to take into consideration.
Fresh fruit
Is composed mainly of water must be taken into account during the processing of a sweet.
Fruit jam with no added sugar
I like to use to sweeten jams, so I can play around with flavor to my sweet even with all types of fruit without seasonal limitations.
Honey
Its taste depends on the nutrition of bees, the honey and wildflower has a delicate flavor that does not affect the taste of the recipes, that of citrus fruits or cherries has a slight aftertaste of fruit, the strawberry tree linden honey eucalyptus and chestnut are bitter and must be used in recipes that call bitter sweet contrast. Sweetens 25-50% more sugar and has a water content of 18% approximately. It contains yeast.
Maple syrup
Its intense flavor and slightly caramelized is more or less pronounced depending on the degree of refining classified into A, B, C. Grade A is the most refined and is the most delicate.
Malt
a syrup, honey-like, obtained by cooking in water of the germinated cereal flour. Not all grains have the same taste as a result there are different malts obtained list them from sweetest to less sweet in descending order: corn, wheat, rice, kamut, spelled, barley. It has a sweetening power, compared to sugar, which oscillates between 55 and 65% and contains 20% of water, therefore malt 100ml correspond to 80 g of sugar.
Stevia
Many are commercially available compounds based on stevia but in different percentages to Cune negligible, it is good to check the percentage of stevia contained in the products before buying them. And ‘composed of stevioside has an aroma of licorice and rebaudioside which has a neutral flavor, better to buy the one with a high percentage of rebaudioside than not influence the taste of the recipes
Stevia is available commercially in different preparations:
- the green stevia powder or liquid still contains stevioside that has a licorice aftertaste, is not the most suitable in the kitchen
- the stevia white crystallized powder has a very high sweetening power 1 g of stevia corresponds to 350 g of sugar
- the liquid stevia has a sweetness less high, 3 drops of liquid stevia correspond to 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Sugar: muscovado, jaggery, rapadura, panela, kokuto, sucanat
Dark unrefined sugars with molasses. Production methods may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.It is good to carefully check the label to verify that they have been produced under controlled conditions and prefer organic. They are moist sugars, in the baked goods the doses of sugar and liquids present in the recipe must be rebalanced. They give a dark color and a pleasantly caramelized-bitter taste.
They are also used: in barbecue sauce, in marinades and in salad dressings to create pleasant contrasts.
Unrefined sugar
Not to be confused with the raw sugar that has more or less the same characteristics for white sugar is refined as the white one to make it light brown color is added with molasses or caramel, integral sugar is darker because less refined and therefore rich in minerals and vitamins.
Deliberately exclude from this list fructose and artificial sweeteners, this is what they think the doctors of LILT (Italian League for the Fight against Cancer), and not only of these products:
A daily or frequent fructose has been shown to be very harmful in short enough to know which acts on fat metabolism, increases insulin resistance, increased abdominal fat, uric acid, is an important cause of fatty liver and is considered harmful almost as much ethanol (with which it shares different effects on the organism!). the same goes for the high fructose corn syrup (also called corn syrup!) that is contained in several packaged food products.
Artificial sweeteners, are almost all potential carcinogens.
The second objective is to reduce the dose of sugar present in the recipes 5 – 15 g of sugars can sweeten a 100 g dose of food.
Most classic recipes recommend a dose of sugar that does not take into account the amount of sugar naturally contained in the other ingredients of the recipe: the fruit fructose, maltose cereals, lactose dairy products. A decrease of the sugar in a recipe does not compromise the success of the final product but its dose has to be balanced with the rest of the ingredients and their characteristics.
In my “food sensivity” find all my recipes with dietary peculiarities:
⇒ soy free
clibi 