This post was created in partnership with Wholesome Sweeteners
The way I see it, healthy living is all about having a good experience and feeling a sense of ease. Feeling confident about your ability to mindfully choose your moments to indulge is a part of that, and in your day to day life, having suitable options that help you have a positive experience without having to go to great lengths is important.
Many people struggle with sugar. The USDA recommends capping off your added sugar intake at 10% of your daily calories, and the American Heart Association recommends limiting that to 100 calories or 6 teaspoons for women, and 150 calories or 9 teaspoons for men. It’s not like the idea that sugar isn’t doing us any favors is new, and the more we learn about it, the more we uncover about the ways in which excess sugar intake can negatively impact our mental, physical, and emotional health.
However, simply knowing what it can do to our weight, glycemic control, mood, and energy levels can often elevate sugar to “forbidden food” status, the alluring “bad boy” your parents warned you about, if you will. Feelings of guilt and shame often come up around eating or craving sugar, causing a destructive cycle.
Swapping in tons of artificial sweeteners isn’t really the answer either, though, because many artificial and even naturally derived non-caloric sweeteners are so much sweeter than sugar that they condition us to expect higher levels of sweetness. Besides, it just tastes like they’re trying too hard.
I teamed up a few months ago with Wholesome Sweeteners to test-drive their granulated and liquid allulose products. What I love about allulose, a naturally present rare sugar found in plants like figs, pears, and grapes is that it doesn’t leave you with that weird aftertaste. It’s about 70 percent as sweet as sucrose (table sugar) and tastes and behaves just like it in recipes. It dissolves easily in liquids and mixes well, yielding the same texture sugar lends to baked goods.
Yes, it’s a non-caloric sweetener with no glycemic response, but it tastes, looks, and feels like regular sugar, giving you the chance to still have that pleasurable experience you crave without confusing the heck out of your mind and body. It also happens to be gluten-free, vegan, and keto friendly, so if you or a loved one need an option that checks off any of those boxes, you can make something you can enjoy together.
One of my favorite recipes that I tested with the allulose was these tahini oat flour chocolate chip cookies. In my home, we’ve got a number of dietary restrictions to take into account, so this recipe needed to be nut-free, peanut-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free. I also used dark chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate to dial down the sugar there a little more, but if you can’t find dark chocolate, simply break up your favorite dark chocolate bar.
I hope you enjoy these!
Gluten-Free Tahini Oat Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 12 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups gluten-free oat flour or 1 ¼ cups gluten-free rolled oats
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup granulated allulose
- ½ cup tahini
- 2 eggs, beaten
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips or dark chocolate chunks plus more for drizzling
- ¼ cup dried tart cherries, ideally unsweetened
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- If needed, pulse oats in a food processor to make oat flour.
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together oat flour, sea salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- Whisk allulose, tahini, eggs, and vanilla together.
- Add dry ingredients to wet. Once everything is mixed well, fold in the chocolate chips and dried cherries.
- Using a tablespoon, spoon 12 mounds cookie dough onto the baking sheet, smoothing out the top of each lightly with a spoon.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until cookies are just starting to brown on top. Garnish with additional sea salt if desired.
- Allow cookies to cool. Melt the remaining dark chocolate chips and drizzle over cookies.
Store in an airtight container for up to one week.
If desired, you can make 24 half-sized cookies and reduce cooking time.
Disclaimer: This post was created in partnership with Wholesome Sweeteners. Opinions are my own.