It’s festive season what with Raksha Bandhan right around the corner, Ganesh Chaturthi on the next street and wedding season ready to spread its wings. Raksha Bandhan is a festival devoted to siblings wherein a sister ties Rakhi to her brother and receives gifts while a brother vows to always protect his sister. It is a festival in which the whole family comes together and this significant ritual culminates by treating each other with sweets. Even in wedding rituals, both the families come together and exchange sweets to portray their happiness over this union. In fact, be it any festival or any wedding, sweets are bound to be involved. But if you, your partner or your family are working towards a healthy diet sans sugar or if you’re diabetic and sugar is banned for you; in both these cases, you’re unable to say no to sweets as you don’t want the festive spirit to die down. Then, what to do? How to solve this serious problem that threatens your health as well as your relations?
We have a suggestion to make. How about you make delicious homemade desserts that are healthy and nutritious, without sugar and also serve the purpose of sweets? Isn’t that the perfect solution?
1) Ragi Coconut Laddoo
Ragi is an extremely healthy grain, which adds high nutrition value to this traditional Indian sweet. With the addition of crunchy peanuts, jaggery, and coconut, this protein-rich ladoo is just perfect for your healthy festive menu. What’s more is that you can add Osoaa’s unflavoured protein to the mix to make it healthier!
Take the salt and flour in a bowl and sprinkle water little by little whilst mixing it and simultaneously breaking them into crumbs. Now mix in the coconut. Steam the mixture along with coconut for 10-15 minutes. Lay the mixture down on a tray and allow it to cool. Blend the jaggery with the peanuts and flour mixture. Roll them into lemon-sized balls and voila! You’re done!
Once you present these laddoos to your guests, you can definitely expect for them to exclaim “Laddoo?!” like Poo in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham as they indulge in this healthy and nutritious affair of sweet exchanging. You may be skeptical about its taste initially before you taste them but you won’t have any such inhibitions once you take a bit. It’ll soon become your favorite dessert and won’t be unhealthy either. It’s super easy and quick to make and even quicker to consume!
2) Apple Rabri
To make this tempting dessert, you only need three essential ingredients and you are good to go! To make this easy dessert you need 1 teaspoon cardamom, 1 litre of milk, and 4 apples.
All you have to do is boil 1 litre of milk and keep stirring until it is reduced to half. Rinse and slice the apples before you add them to the Rabri, then add some cardamom powder and once the Rabri turns thick, turn off the flame and transfer to a serving bowl. Finally, garnish with nuts and saffron strands.
3) Oats Kheer
The best thing is that this kheer is made with healthy oats and not rice. Then the next thing is that it contains a variety of nutrients from almonds, banana and milk. It is sweetened with healthy dates and raisins. Could it BE any healthier? We say, this kheer is just perfect. How to make it you ask?
Roast oats for 4 to 5 minutes. Add milk in a pan as well as sugar, almonds, raisins and cardamom. Let it boil for about 5 minutes. Add oats to it and let it boil until it thickens. Once the kheer is done, add fruits if you like and serve hot or cold.
4) Sesame Peanut Butter Sweet
To make this fascinating fusion delight, you need 2 cups of protein-rich peanut butter. Take a pan over medium flame, add in 1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup white sesame seeds, toss them nicely and transfer to a plate. To the same pan, add in 2 cups of peanut butter and allow it to melt nicely. Add in 1 cup dried coconut and mix well. In the end, add the sesame seeds, mix nicely and allow it to cool.
Transfer it to a greased tray, pour the mixture and allow it to cool. You can also refrigerate it and serve! If you want to add some sweetness to this dessert, you may add some dried fruits or honey.
5) Grilled Almond Barfi
First of all, we should assure you that the barfi is not grilled, the almonds are. So don’t take this the wrong way. Ever tasted a Barfi made with grilled almonds? It is absolutely nothing like you've tasted before. The healthfulness of almonds, smokiness from the grill, and the creaminess of khoya - all add up to make this wonderful, guilt-free barfi. You can add honey, jaggery or other healthy sweeteners to this barfi.
Grate the khoya and keep it aside. Now heat a pan and add khoya, add 40 g of sweetener and cook on low flame for 3-4 minutes. After that, remove from fire and mix in crushed and roasted almonds. Immediately transfer to individual serving dish. You can sprinkle the remaining sweetener on top. Place the dish in a hot oven at 200⁰ C with heat only from top and allow the sugar to caramelize. Once ready, remove and serve immediately.
6) Apple Chia Seed Smoothie
Apple chia seeds smoothie is a superb way to kick-start your Raksha Bandhan on a nutritious and healthy note. All it takes is five minutes and three ingredients (1 chopped apple, 1 cup yogurt, 1 tsp peanut butter (optional),1 tsp chia seed)
to whip up this cold and delicious smoothie.
Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend well. That’s all. Serve chilled! Bon Appetit!
We’re celebrating everything from Raksha Bandhan to weddings amidst this pandemic. It’s not the same, we all agree. But the least we can do is continue the tradition of making some sweet at home. Yes, we know that in this health-conscious generation, sweets are tended to be avoided. But these recipes will solve this problem of yours. If there’s any other dessert that you wish to make or bake, you can just simply add Osoaa’s unflavoured protein to it to make it healthier. Same is the case with shakes. The protein being unflavoured can be added to basically anything edible.
But just eating sugar-free sweets to soothe your sweet tooth won’t help with diabetes, if you’ve got it. Another way that Osoaa could be of help is by providing you with this Diabetic Care health supplement that we have recently launched. It is extremely beneficial for diabetic patients having type 1 or type 2 diabetes. It is 100% Herbal & has no side effects. It is made up of 10 Powerful Herbal Extracts for Managing Type 1 & Type 2 Diabetes. It consists of Gudmar, Jamun, Karela, Bhumi Amla, Neem, Bel Patra, Triphala, Methi in Extracts, Vad Chhal & Vijay Sar in Powder Form. The Osoaa Diabetic Care will help you control blood sugar level, maintain insulin levels, curb sugar cravings, build immunity, etc. It is imperative that you take utmost care of your health if you have diabetes. You’re supposed to maintain a regular healthy diet, control sweets and sugar and take proper medication. Using Diabetic care will help you do all this, the only thing you have to keep in mind is to take one Osoaa Diabetic Care capsule twice a day, regularly for 2-3 months. Since it doesn’t have any side effects it won’t do you any sort of harm. Osoaa only brings you products that are natural and ones that the makers can use themselves. We hope we can assist you in your journey towards a healthy lifestyle.