Make Holiday Desserts Without Refined Sugars

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Pecan Pie Tart Photo by Howard Lee Puckett

6 Holiday Desserts with Unrefined Sugars:

• Pecan Pie Tarts
• Ginger Cookies
• Ginger Molasses Muffins 
• Chocolate Beet Cake 
• Whipped Chocolate Ricotta
• Cranberry Orange Cake 

Online Exclusive Recipes: 

• Date Cake
• Aromatic Pears 

When your friends and family gather this holiday season, treat them by serving pitch-perfect desserts—sweetened with unrefined sugars. After all, special pies, cakes and cookies are the stuff of memories. But let’s face it: A chance to cut some sugar from our diets, while keeping the deliciousness in, is much needed.      

Consider the average American, who now consumes 136 pounds of added sugar every year. This is not sugar naturally present in foods like fruit and grains, but that which is added in baking, cooking and food processing. Half is refined sugar, the rest mainly corn sweeteners used in industrial food processing. Little is from wholesome or less-processed sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, molasses or fruit. 

What’s Wrong with Refined Sugar?

Sugar is not inherently evil. Even refined white sugar (99.9 percent sucrose) is not dangerous in moderation—the body can metabolize sucrose for energy and other functions. Problems arise when we consume more sugar than our bodies have the capacity to manage. That threshold is about 6 teaspoons a day for women and 9 teaspoons for men, according to the American Heart Association. Currently, Americans consume at least three to four times that amount. Clearly, sugar is loved in too many ways!

Sugar overload is linked to such ills as worsening age-related mental decline; type 2 diabetes; cardiovascular disease; elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides; and obesity in children and adults.