Healthy Holiday Baking Class:
Transforming The Sugar Cookie

By Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, M.S., D.C., C.C.N., D.A.C.B.N.,
© 2002

Sugar Cookies.  They made our mouths water as children. 

But as adults, we’re more conscious about the ingredients.  All that sugar!  All that butter and bleached white flour…  Nope, we can no longer pretend we don’t know what happens to our bodies when we eat this stuff.  Darn.  But wiser decisions really do make us healthier and able to enjoy holidays to come.

So, let’s take a before and after look at Sugar Cookies.  Let’s start making wiser decisions at the very next holiday.

A typical Christmas Sugar Cookie recipe reads something like this:

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup soft butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

So what’s the problem with this?  Let’s look at the ingredients one at a time:

All purpose flour:  This flour is made from whole grains of wheat which have been refined by removing the outer layer of bran and germ, where most of the nutrients are found.  About 20 minerals and 8 vitamins are removed from the wheat during processing.  If it is then enriched, only 5 of these 28 nutrients are then put back in using synthetically derived chemical vitamins.  When we eat refined wheat flour (white flour) our bodies fail to get the nutrients that are naturally present in wheat and our bodies’ stores of these nutrients are depleted (as out bodies search for these nutrients), especially the B vitamins which give us energy and help us think and learn. 

Butter:  This is the fat from cow’s milk.  It is high in cholesterol, saturated fats, and traces of hormones fed to the cow’s to stimulate milk production.  Excess consumption has been shown to contribute to heart disease and some forms of cancer.

Margarine:  This is a fat made by chemically changing vegetable oils to make them solid at room temperature.  Many people think of margarine as a health food and freely substitute it for butter, thinking they are doing their body good.  Studies over the past 20 years have shown that margarine is actually more harmful than butter because processing creates a type of fat known as trans-fats, which damage the blood vessels, stimulate the liver to produce cholesterol, and cause damage to cells that can eventually lead to cancer.

Sugar:  Consumption of refined sugar has been linked to many health problems.  A few of these include diabetes, dental cavities, heart disease, hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, osteoporosis, and acne.  Sugar decreases the activity of the infection-fighting white blood cells by 50%, so it can lead to more frequent colds, flus, and other infectious diseases.  And refined sugar has had all vitamins removed in the processing, aw well as all but a fraction of one percent of its minerals.

Eggs: Eggs are high in cholesterol and hormone residues, and excess consumption has been associated to heart disease.

So now what?  We’ve just learned that none of the major ingredients in Christmas cookies are healthy for us.  Do we stop eating them all together?  Fortunately, there are many ways to make healthier cookies.  We will learn just a few of them here.

Let’s take this old recipe and change it to make it more healthy.  You may substitute all or some of the following ingredients for those in the original recipe.  You’ll start getting the healhy benefits even if you only substituting 1/2 the original amounts with the healthier ingredients!

All purpose flour: for each 1 cup in the original recipe, substitute any of the following:

·        1 Cup minus 2 Tablespoons Whole Wheat Flour

·        1 Cup minus 2 Tablespoons Kamut Flour*

·        1 Cup minus 2 Tablespoons Spelt Flour*

·        1 Cup minus 2 Tablespoons Corn Flour

·        3/4  Cup minus 1 1/2 Tablespoons Brown Rice Flour

·        1 1/4 cup minus 2 1/2 Tablespoons Barley Flour

·        1 1/3 cup minus 2 1/2 Tablespoons Oat Flour

·        1 1/3 cup minus 2 1/2 Tablespoons Soy Flour

* Kamut and Spelt are similar to wheat(they are an ancient form of wheat)  but are tolerated by many people who have  wheat allergies.

Butter or Margarine:  In most recipes the amount of butter can be cut in half and an equivalent amount of any of the following wet ingredients can be substituted for the omitted half:  applesauce, mashed banana, 100% fruit juice, water, fruit puree.  For the second half of the butter, any of the following fats can be substituted: monounsaturated vegetable oil*** (see chart below for most healthy choices), nut butter (almond or cashew work best), unrefined coconut butter.

Refined and heated vegetable fats can be among the most damaging foods for our bodies.  Heat, air, and light chemically alter the structure of fats and cause them to become rancid, thereby damaging the cells in our bodies.  When choosing vegetable oils, the best ones are expeller pressed, unrefined, and stored in dark-colored bottles in the refrigerator.  The brands that I trust the most are Omega Nutrition and Barleans.  The only vegetable oils that are recommended for baking, based on their heat stability,  are:

·        Sesame oil

·        Olive oil

·        Hazelnut oil

·        Coconut butter

Sugar: For each 1/2 cup of sugar in the original recipe, substitute the following:

·        ½ - ¾ cups date sugar (ground, dehydrated dates)

·        ½  cup fruit source (granulated rice syrup)
(If any of the liquid sweeteners below are used, reduce the liquid content in the recipe by 1/4 cup.  If no liquid is called for in the recipe, add 3-5 tablespoons of “good”  flour for each 3/4  cup of sweetener)

·        ½ cup date syrup

·        ½ cup maple syrup

·        ½ cup honey

·        1 ½ cup barley malt extract

·        ½ cup 100% fruit juice concentrate

·        1 cup sugarless jam or jelly

·        1 ¼ cups dried fruit puree

·        1 ¼ cups rice syrup

·        ½ cup unsweetened frozen juice concentrate

·        2 cups fruit juice

·        1 cup fruit juice and 2 cups carrot juice

Eggs:  For each egg you may substitute any of the following: 

·        Enerchi egg replacement powder, mixed as directed on box

·        1 tablespoon oil, plus 2 tablespoons baking powder, plus 2 tablespoons water or fruit juice

·        1 teaspoon nut butter with water or fruit juice to egg consistency

·        1 teaspoon ground flax seeds or psyllium seed husks with enough water to egg consistency

·        ½ teaspoon arrowroot plus ¼ teaspoon baking soda

·        4 tablespoons almond or cashew butter with 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Most of the ingredients that seem unfamiliar may be purchased at health food stores and the natural food's section of some supermarkets .  I stock some of them and can make them available locally.

One final recommendation!

Look for new recipes that use healthier ingredients right from the start.  There are many great cookbooks.  A few are listed below:

These books are exclusively dessert books:

¨      Sweet Temptations by Frances Kendall, Avery Publishing

¨      Baking for Health by Linda Edwards, Avery Publishing

These books are general recipe books with lots of good dessert recipes:

¨      Cooking with Rachel by Rachel Albert

¨      The High Road to Health by Lindsay Wagner

¨      The Self Healing Cookbook by Kristina Turner

¨      Raw by Juliano

¨      The Raw Gourmet by by Nomi Shannon and Brian Clement

To read more about these and other cookbooks, check out my Products section.

Happy Holidays And Congratulations For Making Your Holidays Healthier!  

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo likes to think of  herself as a health coach.  She is a doctor of chiropractic and a certified clinical nutritionist.  In addition, she has a masters degree in human nutrition, advanced training in nutrition and integrated health care, and is certified in acupuncture.

 Her philosophy of health care stems from her belief that the body is born with enormous self-healing potential.  Unfortunately, lifestyle, habits, and beliefs often short circuit the self-healing mechanisms, and illness and dysfunction result.  Uncovering the underlying cause of health challenges, and integral part to the work that Dr. Loscalzo does, can be tricky. 

 Dr. Loscalzo incorporates a wide range of healing modalities into her practice, including lifestyle and nutrition counseling, stress management, manipulation, acupuncture and acupressure, craniosacral therapy, various forms of therapeutic massage, kinesiology, and supplementation of biocompatible nutrients, herbs, and homeopathic formulations. 

This article and all content of her website are copyrighted to Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo.  Feel free to share this information with friends and family.  However, reprint in all forms (including electronic and old-fashioned print) are by permission only.  You will find her receptive to most requests.  Just drop her an email.