Oh ice cream… you’re so tasty and comforting but so bad for us!
Delicious though ice cream is, it’s also filled with sugar and fat and is super calorific. It doesn’t help either that it’s so moreish- you have a spoonful and invariably you then need to have another spoon. And another. And another. And so on.
But what if ice cream wasn’t unhealthy? What if it was super good for you and was something you should actually be encouraged to eat?
And what if it also wasn’t prohibitively expensive (we’re looking at you Ben&Jerry’s!).
Nope, this isn’t some kind of alternative universe Bizarro world… it’s actually completely possible. There is one very healthy ice cream recipe you can make from home easily and it only requires three ingredients. Yes, this is the promise land.
And the receipt is right here…
How to Make Healthy Ice Cream From Three Ingredients
You will need:
- ½ cup coconut milk
- 5 tablespoons of corn starch or tapioca starch
- 1 ½ cups of fruit or vegetable juice
To make it, what you’re going to do is take half the coconut milk and stir it with the starch until it becomes nice and smooth. Now set it to one side and heat up the remaining milk in a small saucepan on low heat until it begins to bubble.
Now add the mixture you’ve already made into the warm coconut milk and let it bubble slightly. Stir briskly and as soon as it begins to get thicker, take it out of the pan and add it to a heatproof bowl.
Add in your juice and if you like you can also use chopped fruits. Strawberry, cherry, banana and others all work wonders and you can have fun experimenting.
Now chill the mixture and you’ll have delicious and healthy icecream in no time!
Note that you can make your own tapioca starch by taking instant tapioca and grinding it in a spice mill/mortar and pestle.
Health Benefits
The main health benefits from this mixture come of course from the coconut. Coconut is very good for us in lots of ways as an antioxidant with lots of healthy nutrients.
Moreover though, coconut milk contains MCT oil – medium chain triglycerides – which have a structure that allows them to reach the liver much more quickly without being broken down. There, they then encourage the production of ketones, which provide an alternative energy source for the brain (and the glial cells in particular).
All this means you get a sudden burst of energy without raising your blood sugar. And the best part? It goes through the system too fast to be stored as fat. It’s well worth learning more about the health benefits of coconut.
On top of that, you can also of course get all kinds of other health benefits simply from adding fruits that are high in vitamins and minerals.
Want an alternative healthy ice cream recipe? How about trying a frozen yogurt instead?
