Can we take a moment to talk about how truly, magnificently jaded our society is about what is and (more importantly) is NOT healthy? Just in the last few days, I keep coming across recipes or products that are touted as "a healthy snack" (always a snack, yet do we ever eat snack sized portions???) and they're still l-o-a-d-e-d with unhealthiness. Like butter. And sugar. This is not to say that I'm looking to cast the first stone here. Good gracious, no. Sugar is my boo, and with no adult supervision in the house (I hardly count to supervise myself, right?) during the day, it's pretty much an anything goes kind of carnival when the kids aren't looking. In fact, it's kind of a game. How many chocolate chips can I sneak out of the noisy container with the kids on the other side of the half wall? Will the girls notice if I discreetly snitch a cookie and eat it with my back turned to them the entire time? For the record, I'm about 50-50. And you know when times are desperate, the girls get a treat, cause the "rule" in our house is they get a treat when we get a treat. Except that it's really more like they get a treat when I get caught having a treat. But then there's naptime...
But I should get back to the what-in-the-world-are-you-thinking-calling-this-a-healthy-snack-alternative thread that I was actually trying to start, here. I've been looking at loads of apple recipes lately since we came home with the aforementioned 1 1/2 bushels of apples (which, turns out, is around 200 per the size of our apples, which are pretty big this year). One cannot be satisfied by applesauce alone, and we've been feasting on apple dessert after apple dessert after apple dessert for 1 1/2 weeks straight now. I knew that I liked apples, but even I'm surprised that I haven't gotten tired of what amounts to some variation of the same flavor profile so much for the past 12 days. Other than the obvious overload of apples needing to be used, why am I still cranking these yummies out with no break for something chocolate? Because. They're still all loaded with sugar and butter, of course. And I'm not about to start proclaiming how apple crisp becomes a healthy snack alternative--you could even eat it for breakfast!!! like that's actually true. It's so not. When you must add some variation of a stick of butter or a full scoop of sugar to fulfill the demands of a recipe, it's not "a healthy alternative." It's a dessert with benefits, but it's not healthy. Never trust a fat cook, right? Let's not be tricking ourselves into believing that if you stick a slice of fruit in it, it magically becomes not dessert. If that were the case, I'd plunk one raspberry on every gigantic wedge of brownie that I find. Just watch the pounds melt off!
Any my stink eye is also cast towards you, Nutella, and your devious advertising tactics. Spreading chocolate on top of toast is suddenly a healthy breakfast option (that the whole family will love!!)? Let's just sell it with a spoon attached and leave it at that, for who doesn't hoard the Nutella, hiding it from the probing eyes of the toddler set? Unconditional love is a little bit bogus; it is conditional when adult-ed peanut butter is at stake. (Obviously, I'm hyperbolizing (not a word--I'm just feeling snarky). My own kid was just gladly handed a graham cracker spread with a bit of Nutella after she asked for one kindly. I just happened to load up two for myself when she wasn't looking to notice the disparity of the amount of delicous she got in comparison to me. Yet was this her healthy snack for the morning? Absolutely not! She ate an apple first. She knows the rules.)
Here's to healthy snacks everywhere. May you not be tainted by the false advertising of those who wish they were you.
(Did anyone catch my literary reference in the title of this post??? Anyone??? Someone???)
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