No one said you can’t enjoy dessert when following the South Beach Diet. The best desserts are homemade, using the healthiest ingredients possible. Here are some delicious ideas to help make your desserts South Beach Diet–friendly.
-
Skip
the whip. Whipped cream is a common dessert topping.
Leaving it off your desserts will significantly cut down on fat and calories.
Instead, use fat-free plain Greek yogurt sweetened with a little agave nectar
or a small dollop of fat-free dairy whipped topping.
-
Avoid
the sugar. On Phases 1 and 2, replace the
sugar you would use in baked goods with monkfruit all-natural no-calorie
sweetener (which tastes a lot like sugar) or stevia.
-
Cut the
butter. Butter enriches many baked
desserts, but it's also high in saturated fat. If a recipe calls for butter,
try replacing it with trans-fat-free margarine (vegetable-oil spread), or in
some cases with olive or canola oil. Keep in mind that you may need to
experiment with the recipe to achieve the taste and texture you like with the
substitution.
-
Avoid
"à la mode."
We all know the joy of pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream — it’s a
frequent temptation that really shouldn’t be enjoyed until you’re on Phase 3. But
you can easily avoid this double whammy by enjoying a few bites of just one or
the other. Another solution, have the pie with a little fat-free plain yogurt
on top instead.
- Consider healthy flour options. Once you’re on Phase 2, you can use whole-wheat, white whole-wheat, or whole-wheat pastry flour to prepare baked desserts. In addition, you can experiment with gluten-free flour and grain options, such as almond or hazelnut flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, coconut flour, garbanzo flour, and sorghum flour.
