Today on Growing Your Health, we discussed how to have a healthy holiday feast and avoid punishing yourself with “foods” that you know you’ll regret later.

One of the things we talked about was substituting healthy sweeteners for unhealthy ones. Healthy sweeteners you can use are:

raw, unfiltered honey (generally , you don’t want to give this to infants, but they should be on a diet of 100% human breast milk anyway).

real maple syrup

agave nectar

stevia powder or extract (a little bit goes a very long way on this one; it’s 30 times as sweet as sugar)

brown rice syrup

evaporated cane juice (and other raw unrefined sugars)

For the liquid sweeteners above, use half as much of them as a recipe calls for in sugar, so if the recipe calls for 3 cups sugar, use 1 1/2 cups of honey.  You’ll also need to reduce the amount of liquid you add to the batter.

For stevia, check a stevia cookbook or look up online, you won’t need much.

The sweeteners to avoid are things like: any form of refined sugar, and anything that doesn’t exist in nature (synthetics) like saccharin, aspartame (“nutri-sweet), and sucralose (“splenda”) as these are all toxic to a greater or lesser degree.

The name of the vegetarian “turkey” is Tofurky and it can be found at your local health food store.

explore organic and chemical-free versions of your favorites at your local health food store. Yes, it really does make a significant difference.

Emphasize lighter foods and plant foods to avoid that uncomfortable bloated feeling.

…and have a wonderful Holiday Season.

Listen to “Growing Your Health” on www.realcoachingradio.com every Tuesday at 5:30 pm MST.