There’s something about the winter that always makes me want dessert. Ok, maybe it’s all year round and I just like dessert…leave me alone! What I don’t like, is a bunch of sugar messing with my hormones and getting me all addicted.
Have you ever had a sugar hangover? If you want one just cut out all sugar and white flour for about a week and then go eat a large ice cream cone after dinner and the next day you’ll have a sugar hangover! Yay! (not yay). It feels pretty much the same as a normal hangover including the headache and the fuzzy brain. Not fun, but totally try it! Then you’ll really understand the nasty effects of sugar on your system.
I used to be so addicted to sugar that if there weren’t any cookies or ice cream in the house, I’d literally go bake something from scratch. I also told my brother not to let me eat any sweets one day, and then wrestled him to the ground for a cookie two hours later. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize I had a problem…but it did!
Now, dessert for me is usually something simple like a couple of dates, a handful of raspberries, or a square of really dark chocolate. Whatever the dessert may be, it’s usually easy to eliminate sugar when you use fruit to sweeten it up, which is why this pear and apple crisp is so great! With no white sugar and no white flour this could easily be considered breakfast appropriate.
It also makes your house smell pretty incredible thanks to the cinnamon. No need to waste money on those holiday scented air freshers containing who knows what kinds of chemicals when you’ve got this cooking in the oven!
Ok, so we know that a pear and apple crisp is going to be delish, but lets not forget that the things we eat should be benefiting our health too. I want to share a tiny bit of what Dr. T. Colin Campbell explains in his book, Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, about the way our bodies take in nutrients from food. He uses the example of an apple, so this totally fits with the theme here, right!?
He explains that nutrition needs to be approached in a holistic manner, not in a reductionist manner. Basically, we can’t just take supplements and expect our bodies to get the vitamins they need; we need to eat real, whole, foods. As he explains, researchers found that a half cup of apple has a “vitamin C-like activity level” equal to 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C, which is a lot. However, when they chemically analyzed the half cup of apple, they found only 5.7 milligrams of vitamin C, which is not a lot. The researchers found that there are several other “vitamin C-like chemicals” in the apple that make eating a whole apple, as opposed to just the extract of vitamin C, like a vitamin pill, much more effective. A vitamin C pill doesn’t have all the other chemicals with it to support the potency of vitamin C. That’s why eating whole fruits and vegetables is so important! The whole is greater than the sum of its parts people! Aristotle knew what was up! Now we do too!
I love this approach to eating because it means you’re eating real food, not drinking a chalky shake and popping pills.It also just makes so much sense to approach health in a holistic manner because your mind, body, and spirit are all connected. Ever get really stressed at work and then get the flu or a terrible cold? It’s no coincidence. Your mind is stressed, your body becomes stressed, and then your health goes and forces you to chill the eff out! Had you listened to your body and managed your stress to begin with, you may not have gotten sick.
So, apples are awesome, but you know that already. They have a lot of valuable vitamins and properties to them, which aren’t that important when you break them all down because essentially, you have to eat the whole apple anyways. So eat the apples, and the pears, and the bananas, and the oranges, and the broccoli, and the tomatoes, and the zucchini. Just eat it all, as is, not in a powdered shake or pilled form. (Ok, ending rant now!)
Enjoy this on a crisp cold winter’s night and cuddle up for some good ol’ R&R. Go to bed early, catch up on sleep, avoid the sugar, and try to get through the winter without getting sick! Good Luck!
| Naturally Sweetened Pear & Apple Crisp (Vegan & Gluten Free) | Print |
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ cup maple syrup, divided
- 4 ripe but firm pears, peeled and diced into large pieces
- 4 apples, peeled and diced into large pieces
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- ½ cup almond meal
- 1 cup oat flour
- scant ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons vegan butter, cold
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the corn starch, lemon juice, orange juice and zest, ¼ cup of maple syrup, nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and ground ginger until combined with no clumps of corn starch remaining. Set aside.
- Peel, core, and dice apples and pears and add them to the large mixing bowl. Toss them until equally coated with the maple syrup mix and poor into a deep medium-sized casserole dish.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the old fashioned oats, almond flour, oat flour (use coffee grinder or food processor to blend 1 cup of quick cooking oats into a flour), salt, remaining 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and remaining ¼ cup maple syrup.
- Dice the butter into small cubes and add to the oat mixture.
- Using either 2 forks or a pastry cutter, mix the butter into the oat mixture until it becomes a uniform crumble.
- Poor the crumble topping evenly over the apples.
- Bake for one-hour, or until bubbly and slightly golden brown. Let stand at least 15 minutes before eating.
- Serve warm, topped with dairy free ice cream if desired. I prefer mine served cold, with no topping, but that's just me!
