How come all the wierd ingredients?

So how come you use these ingredients?

Sweeteners

Why Sugar is the devil:
Sugar may possibly be American's greatest health danger-- and I'm not exaggerating.
Refined white sugar makes it more difficult for our bodies to absorb the minerals and vitamins it needs. The body requires excess B vitamins to metabolize and detoxify sugar. Sugar is a major cause inflammation, it spikes blood sugar, is addictive causes obesity, diabetes and other disorders. Sugar depresses the immune system. Refined white sugar may be converted to saturated fat. Sugar may contribute to candidiasis and aggravate some types of asthma, allergies, and arthritis.Other than the sweet taste, sugar does nothing but ruin your body...so what do we use!? Wellll keep reading!

Why Stevia rules:
Stevia is calorie and carbohydrate free, 100% natural, has no effect on blood sugar, which making it perfect for both weightloss and diabetics. Stevia is also the approved sweetener for those with Candida problems because it does not ferment in the intestines and does not feed yeast. Stevia can have a mild after taste which is why I often combine it with a small amount of honey.

Why I prefer Honey:
Being a natural sweetner, it is an ideal replacement for table sugar and even syrup.Honey has 64 calories per tablespoon and table sugar has 46. True, it has more calories than the sugar. However, honey is naturally more sweet than sugar- so you end up needing less. When sugar cane is processed to become the white table sugar we all know and love, all of the inherent nutrition is stripped away. The sugar loses all of those vitamins, proteins and good-for-you enzymes. Since there is no processing for honey, it retains all of that. Honey is a great source of antioxidants, potassium, calcium, minerals and 22 amino acids. Honey also has a much lower Glycemic Index than sugar and is more easily digested, letting your body absorb the nutrients.

Flour Bases

I do not eat grains...Sometimes I will go off on a tangent-- so on this site you may see a few recipes containing corn meal or corn starch. But I always end up swaying back to my grain free ways-- I really just feel better that way. Grains are an unnecessary carbohydrate that can be very destructive for those with any bowel disease and simply empty calories for those with a healthy GI. Simply put-- there's really nothing good about them. Grains are the only food group that can be 100% removed from your diet without any nutrition gaps being formed, that alone should tell us we aren't suppose to be eating them.

Beans instead of flour?
Yes! Navy beans, once pureed, have a similar consistency to that of flour with added moisture. Beans also have less calories, more fiber, more vitamins, and more minerals. Overall I really cannot imagine anyone choosing flour over beans-- nutritionally there are no benefits of flour. I recommend soaking beans for 24 hours before using them. This breaks down some of the starch that may cause GI troubles for some.

Almond butter too?
Almond butter is such a great cooking ingredient. It cooks up nice and fluffy, has great healthy fats, minerals, vitamins and fiber. Some are worried about the calorie content, but per slice or muffin...etc there isn't a huge difference between calories in flour and nut butter. Besides, how I cook you'd probably still net out with lower calories since I don't use sugar. I have been moving towards nuts over beans because of lower carbohydrate values and also their toxic lectins which can cause health problems, interfere with a healing gut and some even siting that they cause auto-immune diseases. This of course is inconclusive, but I will proceed with moderation-- thus more Almonds!

Coconut Flour pretty cool!
Coconut flour is great also! It contains more fiber than any other flour and is hypoallergenic. The saturated fat in coconut is not unhealthy because it is a medium chain fat-- which means it is immediately converted to energy, unlike long chain saturated fat which can be unhealthy. Actually in coconut flour's processing the fat is removed from the coconut-- yes REMOVED FAT. It would be pretty hard to cook with it if all the fat was there, so really its just a bunch of fiber!