If you love gingerbread, you probably loved the story of Hansel and Gretel from the storybook when you were young. That book gave people the idea of making gingerbread houses for special occasions, especially Christmas.
However, when you suffer from allergies and intolerances, indulging in baked goods whose ingredients you’re unaware of can cause you to worry. But if you can at least bake, you can modify these ingredients by using healthy ingredients to make your gingerbread house or cookies.
The most common ingredients in gingerbread are ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and sometimes anise. The sweetener can often be sugar or honey for a healthier version. Gingerbread goodies are a core part of Christmas celebrations, and the smell of gingerbread makes one think of Christmas.
Even so, when making a gingerbread house, if you have specific food allergies and intolerances, it can be helpful to buy all the ingredients and assemble it yourself for peace of mind.
Most people with wheat, gluten, egg, or lactose intolerances, have a hard time picking any baked goodies in the store because of the trouble it could cause if it contains one or more ingredients that cause a flare-up in the immune system.
Can gingerbread be healthy?
While the smell of gingerbread and its taste can bring about childhood memories, it can sometimes contain too much sugar and fat. However, gingerbread has healthy ingredients like ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. These spices, often used to make gingerbread or cookies, are very aromatic and good for the body.
However, gingerbread can be healthy if you make it at home with your preferred ingredients. The fat often used in making gingerbread tends to be saturated fat, and the sugar is white. Even though brown sugar isn’t immensely healthy compared to white sugar, it’s a better substitute, but even what’s best is natural sweeteners like honey or agave.
Typical gingerbread cookies and other goodies are high in fat and sugar, which can make you consume a huge amount of these baked items, resulting in too many calories. All the sugar in these goodies can cause your stomach discomfort due to a lot of sugar.
Also, the saturated fat present in gingerbread can cause cardiovascular issues if you keep consuming foods rich in them daily. Also, the high sugar in these baked items can increase acidity in your mouth and dissolve the enamel covering your teeth resulting in tooth decay.
Lots of saturated fat, high sugar, and calories are the leading cause of obesity. So, you need to be careful about how much of these ingredients you consume in every item you eat daily if you’re looking to maintain a healthy weight and body.
How to make gingerbread ingredients healthy
You can swap certain ingredients for healthier ones but still retain the taste of gingerbread. We still want you to have those childhood memories when you smell your gingerbread and bite into it, but without the risk of getting intolerance symptoms or putting your health at risk.
To make gingerbread healthier, you can:
- Swap white sugar for coconut sugar and brown sugar to boost iron production. You can also use alternative sweeteners like honey or plant sweeteners.
- Swap butter with coconut oil or olive oil, or use vegan butter.
- You can use almond flour or other types of flour in place of wheat. Almond flour is full of protein, which will keep you satiated. You can use oat flour, buckwheat flour, or rice flour.
- Add spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger since they’re full of antioxidants boosting your general well-being.
- You can crush or chop nuts and seeds and add them to your gingerbread.
Who needs healthier gingerbread ingredients?
If you love gingerbread and it’s something you often make, making a healthier version of this treat will help you enjoy it without worrying about calories or unhealthy ingredients.
Our Intolerance Test
If you suffer from food intolerances, finding alternatives for the items your body can’t tolerate is essential. For example, if your body can’t tolerate dairy, you can use plant milk in stead of cow milk and olive oil, vegan butter, or coconut oil instead of regular butter.
Suppose you have specific symptoms like fatigue, IBS, joint pain, brain fog, and other intolerance symptoms every time you consume gingerbread. In that case, it’s high time you took an Intolerance Test to check what ingredients your stomach finds hard to process.
Food intolerance affects many people globally, and the number keeps going up. Once you know what’s causing your intolerance symptoms, it’s high time you cut off that foot item from your shopping list and live free of those triggers.
Final thoughts on healthy gingerbread ingredients
If you love gingerbread, you can easily make it healthier at home by using these healthy gingerbread ingredients. Gingerbread is a beloved treat and especially a household favourite during the holidays. If you visit granny at the end of the year, you’ll surely expect to smell all those warm spices baking in the oven.
These healthy gingerbread ingredients will help you deal with your intolerances and altogether avoid ingredients that cause intolerance symptoms. If you experience intolerance symptoms but don’t know which foods aren’t good for your gut, you can take an Intolerance Test to help you bring things to light and avoid those ingredients in all the foods you consume.
