Have Your Cake And Eat It Too!
Can you imagine how liberating it would feel if we stopped chasing skinny, skipped the latest fad and stopped eating foods we ‘should’ be eating? We’d allow ourselves to learn to eat intuitively - to nourish ourselves.
I want you to stop and think about cake, for a minute. Picture a freshly cooked sponge cake with thick icing. What comes to your mind?
When I ask patients this same question I usually get two answers:
1. They describe the consistency of the cake like “creamy”, “fluffy”, “light”
2. Then almost immediately after that, they say words like “bad”, “naughty”, “guilty”, “shouldn’t” etc.
I want you to think about WHY. Why do you think that? There’s a good a chance it was someone else’s belief, and it’s not yours.
The concept of ‘good’ food and ‘bad’ food seems to be everywhere on the internet. Here’s the thing - a piece of birthday cake CAN actually nourish you.
There’s also this real focus on labels, like being vegetarian, paleo, gluten free, dairy free, etc. What if we ditched the labels and ate food - nourishing food?!
There’s unprocessed foods foods, and there’s processed foods, and there’s nutrient-dense foods and ‘empty’ foods, which lack nutrients. I love the approach of the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating - that there is “everyday” food, such as vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and “sometimes” food, such as cake, chocolate and ‘party food’. We teach this concepts to kids but it works so well for adults. It removes the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ concept. For example juice, lollies and baked goods is “sometimes” food and vegetables, berries, nuts, seeds and fibre like oats, is “everyday” food.
I say let’s focus on eating as much plant based foods as possible, and everyday increasing our veggie intake (aim for 6 serves per day!) + nuts + seeds + omega 3 fats like avocado, olive, fish + lentils + legumes + berries + eggs + seafood, etc. And then, I also encourage you to embrace food - all food, and if you feel like “sometimes” food is coming onto your plate too often, come up with a healthy alternative. Like this sponge cake! Make sense? As a general guide, if ‘sometimes’ food is coming on to your plate more than once a day, you’ll need to focus on a healthier alternative and/or more ‘everyday’ foods.
Full disclosure: if you mention ‘cheat meal’ to me I’ll lose it, and I might just smoosh cake in your face.
A Healthy Sponge Cake
I made this cake purely by accident the other day. Zara, my 3 year old, demanded we make a pink cake. Pomegranates and 3 lonely raspberries was all I had in the fridge so we got creative! This sponge cake has been ‘naturopathed’, of course! It’s a healthy version that’s dairy-free and refined sugar-free.
You can play around with the ingredients and substitute coconut yogurt with Greek yoghurt, if you like. I can’t stomach a lot of cream or milk-based desserts so do what feels good or to suit your health needs
Ingredients:
Berries and pomegranate seeds to serve
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup almond meal
6 eggs
3 TBSP honey/rice malt syrup
Topping:
500g coconut yoghurt
Berries and pomegranate seeds to serve
optional - 1 drop doTERRA cinnamon essential oil OR 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees
2. Grease and line two small cake tins
3. Put the eggs and honey in a mixing bowl and beat on high for 5 minutes, until it’s light and fluffy (it nearly doubles in size)
4. Add in the almond meal and beat until it’s just combined
5. Add in spelt flour & baking powder and beat until just combined (don’t over mix it!)
6. Pour cake batter into cake tins
7. Place in oven for 25-30 minutes
8. Remove from the oven and flip the cakes out on a cooling rack until they’ve completely cooled
9. In a separate bowl mix yoghurt with cinnamon oil or cinnamon powder
10. Put one cake down and pour half the cinnamon yoghurt on top and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and berries
11. Place other cake on top of yoghurt and fruit. Use the remaining yoghurt on top and sprinkle pomegranate seeds and berries
12. Serve and eat immediately
I am a Naturopath and Nutritionist based in Lane Cove on Sydney's North Shore. I offer in person and online consultations so I can work with you from anywhere in the world! My mission is to help you restore vibrant health. I keep it simple! There’s no calorie counting, deprivation or fads. I draw on scientific research and clinical experience to give you personalised recommendations including practical nutritional recommendations, which includes 7-day meal ideas, recipes and shopping lists, and easy-to-apply lifestyle recommendations. I look forward to connecting with you!