THE OTHER DAY, friends of mine organised a great Thanksgiving/Hannukah dinner. For dessert, they made ice cream sundaes by combining vanilla ice cream with home made cookie crumble, molten after eight chocolate sauce, raspberries in sugar sauce and coffee flavored chocolate sprinkles on top.
IT WAS DELICIOUS, BUT I HAVE NOT HAD THAT MUCH SUGAR in one go in weeks! Obviously, I immediately sneakily helped myself to three servings (because let’s face the uncomfortable truth – sugar is delicious :'( ). But then later, I got to thinking. Since this ice cream sundae tasted so good – would it be possible to make a healthy version of it (and still have it tasting great)? What would it even contain?
WELL, YESTERDAY I MADE A HEALTHY VERSION JUST FOR ME!! 😀 I combined:
– organic strawberry sorbet with
– organic milk chocolate ice cream,
– raw almonds and
– raspberry granola (well, Kellog’s Raspberry Flakes).
MANY ICE CREAMS IN THE SUPERMARKET are some chemical filled variation on the basic flavors (boo!). If you don´t believe me just check the labels – artificial colors and flavor enhancers everywhere. Basically, a true pure ice cream should have a label saying something like: milk, water, sugar, vanilla. But, only rarely will you find a vanilla ice cream where only real vanilla has been used to add the flavor. Usually vanilla aroma (synthetic stuff, y´all) and flavor have been used to enhance the idea that you are consuming real vanilla – while in the meanwhile you are taking in a bunch of chemicals.
1. So, THE FIRST STEP TO  A HEALTHIER SUNDAE is good quality ice cream, which should be as pure as possible: plain milk ice cream, vanilla ice cream made using natural vanilla, chocolate ice cream with pure chocolate and without added sauce. Gooey sauces in ice creams are usually made using synthetic chemicals and fructose syrup, so stay away from sauces in store bought ice creams (and store bought sweet sauces in general, but that is another storry).
THIS DOESN’TMEAN YOUR SUNDAE WILL BE BORING! You can easily make chocolate sauce by melting pure chocolate (= minimum 70% cocoa content) au bain marie and you can add pure chocolate chips by finely chopping the remainder of the pure chocolate. Oatmeal cookies can be added for some crumble but what might be even better is making a triple berry crumble and then using that as your fruit and crumble topping (although I absolutely love eating this crumble on its own as well)!
2. THE SECOND STEP TO A HEALTHIER SUNDAE is using delicious fresh fruits and nuts. In this way, you are consuming antioxidants and healthy fatty acids, making this sundae very good for you! Plus, the healthy fruits (and fibers in them) will help counter the negative effect of any sugar you might be eating in the ice cream (since it is actually a myth that humans need artificial sugar at all – it pretty much only has negative effects on your body).
YOU CAN CUT UP MANGO, PAPAYA AND BANANA, and combine them with your ice cream. Raw hazelnuts and almonds will work fantastically when chopped and thrown over the sundae! People who eat a handful of nuts daily have a longer life expectancy than those who do not consume nuts on a regular basis!
3. FINALLY, consider replacing some of the ice cream with sorbets. Sorbets are dairy-free ice creams, ie. only water, sugar and fruit has been used to create them (again, get a plain flavor sorbet to avoid any additional synthetic flavors/chemicals). This is only a relative plus, since sugar is of course still bad, but the fact that sorbets are dairy-free does make them attractive to some people. There are many problems around dairy products, unless they are organic (and from grass-fed animals) in which case consuming them is completely fine since you will not be consuming the chemicals, antibiotics and hormones.
IF YOU ARE TIGHT ON BUDGET I would recommend not skipping on the fruit or the nuts (btw, buy these at a nut specialist store, they are usually much cheaper there than in the supermarkets), but getting a smaller portion of ice cream instead and opting for the fruit that is discounted/needs to be consumed right away.
