Food Review: Healthy Treats
We’ve always been quite skeptical about the rather paradoxical idea of healthy desserts. This was until we tasted a selection of Bandra-based home chef Divya Ranglani’s nutritious yet flavourful desserts that she sells under the brand Healthy Treats. Ranglani, who is a self-confessed health freak, set up Healthy Treats in February 2011, to address a personal dilemma. “I couldn’t live without dessert nor could I suffer the resulting weight gain,” said Ranglani. “And so for the sake of my own addiction, I started baking at home.”
Ranglani, who caters her low-calorie goodies to clients such as actress Sonam Kapoor, industrialist Harsh Goenka and celebrity fitness trainer Zarine Watson, is resolutely averse to the use of refined flour. Bran flour, whole wheat flour and oatmeal serve as the base ingredients for her sponge cakes and muffins, which are available in flavours such as apple and cinnamon; date and carrot; banana and choco chip; orange and figs; cinnamon and cappuccino; blueberry and peach; and dark chocolate and pear. To further absolve her homemade desserts of sin, Ranglani uses canola oil in place of butter, and natural sweeteners such as fruit pulp, fruit pieces, and fresh fruit juice instead of sugar. Remarkably, the desserts taste just as good, if not as rich as those made with cream, sugar and butter.
Take, for instance, the whole-wheat date and carrot cake (a Sonam Kapoor favourite). Flecked with muesli and roasted almonds, the cake was denser and less moist than regular carrot cake, but it was pleasantly sweet with a nice crunch provided by the nuts. The fragrant apple, cinnamon and walnut cake too was adequately sweet, with just the right amount of cinnamon-spiced grated apple. One of the few desserts that didn’t err on the side of health as much was the bestselling dark chocolate and orange cake. The whole wheat flour cake combines fresh orange juice with a number of chunks of dark chocolate (which Ranglani prefers over regular chocolate owing to its high percentage of cocoa). Coffee addicts will love Healthy Treats’s intensely aromatic cinnamon and cappuccino muffin that comes studded with dark chocolate chips; while those with a fruit-favouring palate will be pleased by the moist fig and orange muffin. The only thing that wasn’t up to scratch: Ranglani’s mild whole wheat flour chocolate muffin, which was too much of a departure from the rich chocolate ones we’re accustomed to eating.
The price of a half-kilo whole wheat cake is Rs350, a box of a dozen muffins is priced at Rs450. Ranglani also offers a few savoury dishes such as brown rice sushi rolls; cheese, herbs and onion muffins; and dips. To place an order, call 98201 54550. See the menu here.
Tags: Caterers, Divya Ranglani, Healthy TreatsComments (5)
Leave a comment
Featured Articles
Things To Do This Weekend
May 23, 2013 by Editors
Which Gig Will You Go For Tonight?
May 22, 2013 by Editors
Nido Slated To Open In June
May 22, 2013 by Editors
The Vigil Idiot: Aurangzeb
May 20, 2013 by Sahil RizwanYou Might Also Like...
Mr.Saradhi Rajan
Fructose is one of the main types of sugars found in fruits such as apples, in fruit juices, and in honey. It is also a component of sucrose (table sugar) in equal quantity to glucose to which it is linked. As with table sugar, fructose can be bought at the supermarket; both can be used in the same ways in home cooking and processing. Hence fructose is found also in processed foods such as desserts, dairy products, and preserves.
An important difference is that fructose is up to twice as sweet as sucrose, and sweeter than HFCS. This means less fructose can be used to achieve the same level of sweetness. Consequently fewer calories are consumed from foods of similar sweetness where fructose replaces sucrose or HFCS.
Unlike table sugar or HFCS, fructose does not cause a rapid rise and subsequent large fall in blood glucose levels, which means it has a low glycemic load or glycemic index (GI). Glycemic index (glycemic load per gram carbohydrate) is a measure of how carbohydrates affect blood glucose concentrations. As expected, glucose itself has a high value because it is rapidly absorbed into the blood stream; its GI or glycemic load per gram is 100. In contrast, the glycemic load per gram fructose is only 19, while that of table sugar is 65 – midway between its component parts glucose and fructose. HFCS has a similar GI value to table sugar, though its precise value depends on the fructose content of the HFCS that is used.
When foods high in sugar are eaten, blood sugar rises rapidly to a peak. The higher the rise the greater the fall, which then quickly results in a dip below normal blood sugar levels, and may arouse appetite. Some researchers believe that carbohydrate foods with a low glycemic effect have health benefits, which remains controversial. The World Health Organization concludes that low GI foods may help to prevent obesity, weight gain and type II diabetes. The U.S. Institute of Medicine made no recommendations on GI due to a lack of sufficient evidence of benefit long term against the economic costs of change towards low glycemic carbohydrate diets.
Low glycemic carbohydrate foods may be of benefit to people with diabetes, as they can help to prevent surges in blood glucose. While the American Diabetes Association recognizes that fructose produces a lower blood glucose response when used in foods in place of sucrose or starch, it does not believe GI to be sufficiently important at this time to merit changes to its existing advice on carbohydrate exchanges.
Of course the fact that fruit pulp; fruit pieces etc work as sweeteners is because they are extremely high in sugar – and no; fruit sugar has just the same effect on your body as white sugar!
Has anyone tried the lemon and poppy seed cake?
Isnt there someone like this on the Central suburbs side. Sometimes i feel, Mumbai for you is only upto Bandra and Dadar.
This was exciting enough for us to call them with orders immediately! Turns out the menu (see link above) is not the right/updated one….bottomline call for their recent menu!
Muffins can be ordered only in one flavor if small batches (read upto a dozen). For orders more than two dozens, they could give you combination of 4 flavors * 3.
Also wanted to try out the sushis in brown rice: those are also not available currently.