Granola and almond milk questions

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve, this might be helpful.
How much sugar is in our fruit. There are discussions of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, but I'm not going to go through any of them.


How much sugar is in:
1 cup of refined sugar: 201 grams
1 T of refined sugar: 12.6 grams
1 cup of maple syrup: 214 grams
1 cup of honey: 278 grams



To compare that to fruit I found these values for 1 cup.


Dry fruit: (sugar in grams/1 cup fruit)

Dates: 112.76

Prunes: 66



Fresh fruit:
Fig: 29.3
Pomegranate: 23.8

Grapes: 23.4

mango: 22.5

tangerine: 20.6

banana: 18.3

sweet cherries: 17.7

orange: 16.8

plum: 16.4

pineapple: 16.3

kiwi: 16.2

grapefruit: 15.9

apricot: 15.3

blue berries: 14.7

honey dew melon: 13.8

pear: 13.7

apple: 13

peach: 12.9

cantaloupe: 12.9

nectarine: 11.3
watermelon: 9.4

black berries:7
strawberries:7.4
raspberries: 5.4

cranberries: 4.3

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

thank you bliss..
i'm thinking of cutting the sugar and honey in half and adding sucarlose [an artificial sweetener] to compensate. is that a bad idea in you opinion? if not, how much of sucarlose should i use?

 

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve, I've gone from not reducing sugar to cutting it drastically. In the middle of that process I started using some artificial sweeteners.


I used erythritol (my spelling might be off) because it appeared to be safer than many other artificial sweeteners but it crystallized when I used it in a cooked down fruit puree, so now I don't use it anymore.


When I say safer, I mean tested for long term effects, kidney damage, that kind of thing and I used nutritionfacts.org for my information.


Some of the artificial sweeteners have a 'cooling effect' that people complain about...it doesn't taste exactly like sugar or honey.



I think you're going to find out if something is sweet enough, by trial and error. If you cut your sugar back by half, then try 1/4th the amount of artificial sweetener and taste the product before baking to see if it hits your taste buds right for you. Lower the amount or add more depending on what you think of it.

So for 1 cup of sugar in a recipe try 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup dry artificial sweetener (if it was erythritol) and see how that goes.

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

cool !


anyway. i assume that 1/4 cup of sucarlose {splenda} will be too much. i will start with some and increase after tasting the unbaked mixture....

 

[blissful]

Good luck!

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

tnx!

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

it came out pretty nice


here is a photo.


i added light brown sugar and not dark. this is what i had.... next time maybe i will try dark.


i've used too much sugarlose as it was a bit too sweet after chewing.....


i added halva, roasted pistachios and roasted sunflower seeds at the end.

 

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve, that sounds like a success! Or at least very close to it! It looks very nice. Make notes of what you did and the amounts of ingredients, then how you liked it and how you would change it next time. You'll have a tried and true recipe in no time.


The halva. I've never tried it. Is this often added to granola on serving? Is this the most common way to use halva?

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

yes!!!
and it is a good idea to make some notes for next time....



some commercial brands will add small pieces of halva. more like flakes.


halva here is tahini with some kind of sugar or a sweetener. pretty tasty.

 

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve, I don't think I've ever tried halva, but I've had tahini and of course I've had sugar.



I live in the upper midwest in the US. I thought I'd search our grocery store for it. They have a thing called Joyva Halva Marble. The ingredients are: Crushed Sesame, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cottonseed, Soya), Cocoa, Chocolate, Dried Egg Albumen, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Chocolate Contains: Sugar, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin (an Emulsifier), Vanillin (an Artificial Flavor).

 

[karadekoolaid]

Just seen some of the answers above and had not had time to comment.
Seeing-to-believe: sucralose is about 600 times sweeter than sugar. It is the essential ingredient in Splenda. That means that, if you had a recipe which asked for 600 gms sugar, you´d use only 1 gm sucralose.
I know this because I used to have a company which made marmalade, jam, chutney, pickles, relishes, jellies, etc. One day a representative from Tate & Lyle met with me and asked me to develop some chutneys/jams/preserves with sucralose.
I hav tasted pure sucralose, and the sweetness lingered for about 30 minutes; a bit like tasting a Carolina Reaper pepper. The effect lasts as long.
Moral of the story? Use sucralose with extreme caution.

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

BLISS
i guess in israel they use fructose and not corn syrup



did you type the whole list of ingredients or is it from the product's website?


i've visited this page a moments ago and found that middle eastern halva can be more than that. it can have different 'bases'.



you can use bing or something else for translation.. basically they are mentioning many different kinds. like one that is based on semolina {sounds tasty to me at least..}.


but in israel it is everywhere and known to just be that thini and sugar/sweetener based. they are often sold here in little packets. mostly the sugar free ones....


mine was bought by weight so i can't tell you the ingredients..


i really must also say that although i have a wikipedia link i don't like the project very much. but i can't get into that because it is not allowed.

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

BTW
you can mix tahini from roasted sesame seeds and mix it with dates syrup {natural} or honey and people say that it is a delicacy. i never tried to eat that myself for some 'weird' reasons.....
i don't mind tell the reasons if you are interested..


edit
TNX karadekoolaid
this is too, helpful

 

[blissful]

YES SeeingToBelieve, what are those weird reasons? I have some curiosity.


I just copied the ingredient list from the grocery store item nutrition panel.
Here is another one from a different store in the area: Ziyad Traditional Pistachio Halva, ingredients: TAHINI (SESAME PASTE), SUGAR, PISTACHIO, EMULSIFIER (MONO AND DIGLYCERIDE), SAPONARIA EXTRACT, VANILLIN, CITRIC ACID.

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

YES SeeingToBelieve, what are those weird reasons? I have some curiosity.

when i was a child i never ate tahini or halva. i did started to like hummus at certain point.


one of the major reasons why was because my grandparents from my mother's side used to eat tahini like they did in iraq. but i didn't like their kitchen "arragment" very much so i felt somewhat revolted.
they used not not keep that plastic jar of the tahini completely closed and there was always a spill around the lid. they also tend to by the less expensive ones and all of that is only one reason why i didn't had it back then....


they also didn't knew how to persuade me to try it.......

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

i say,
try making you own halva. it shouldn't be that bother..


you can even try this unique idea of half sugar half splenda if you want less load on your system..


some ideas..

 

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve,
Isn't it strange when we are children, we go into a situation and come away with so many emotions we really aren't sure what they are about. But the negative ones color everything that was going on at the time, so the food particularly.
I had a grandmother that liked children and we ate up the food she made us no matter what it was, it was good. While grandpa was an angry violent sort of person that no one really trusted, so anything he ate was revolting to us as children. We were probably afraid of him and therefore rejected the food. We don't really consciously notice these things until much later.


I might try to put together some tahini, some crushed sesame seeds, some date paste and some honey, and then press it into a waxed paper lined pan, add some chopped almonds and freeze it. Then cut it into little squares for a treat when we want something sweet.

 

[SEEING-TO-BELIEVE]

try halva. it is nice


and yes it's true....


i shared it also for the sake of others to feel comfortable to tell about their food aspects of childhood.
people like to follow things so i said to myself why not to start this early life food experiences idea..
i don't know how much it was talked about in the past here..... but it is always a good idea to restart things..



there are many things i won't eat until this day because of how i saw them as a child.....


like any kind of fish or seafood except for bottled fish sauce..


what did you guys never eat? and maybe even why.. if you can explain? feel free to open a new thread on that....

 

[blissful]

SeeingToBelieve, there are enough threads on 'what won't you touch or taste', covering dozens of foods and I'm sure some of those are due to childhood experiences for many people.
For us: the fat on the outside of pork chops. He wouldn't just eat the ones on his plate, he ate the fat off of everyone's pork chops. We'd cut it off and he'd grab it. Something about that gluttony really bothered me.


I mixed tahini, I ground some sesame seeds, added date paste, and honey, heat it until it was smoother and hot. Poured it into a waxed loaf pan, topped it with chopped almonds, stuck it in the freezer. I'll let you know how that tastes or if it holds together once it is cut.

 

[taxlady]

I adore sesame halvah. It's not safe for me to buy too much at once. I find it hard to stop eating it. It is sooooo good. I prefer halvah without chocolate, but the chocolate one is still yummy.