A Kilo of Truffles and What it Can Do For You!
If you eat three of them as a snack, you’ll get:
23% of your daily fibre requirement*
29% of your iron*
12% of your calcium*
19% of your zinc*
10% of your folate*
12% of your protein*
Your entire day’s requirement of omega-3
(*These percentages are based on the requirements of a six foot man - so if you’re smaller or female, you’ll be getting even more of those daily needs met.)
You’ll also enjoy a massive amount of anti-oxidants: pecans have the highest ‘ORAC’ value (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) of all the nuts, followed by walnuts; cacao is also fabulously high in anti-oxidants and dates aren’t too shabby, either.
What you won’t get is any cholesterol. Or salt. Or refined carbs/sugar.
This type of truffle is also fantastic at beating cravings. If you fancy something sweet, they’re sitting there in the fridge in all their glory, waiting to hit the sweet-spot for you as well as nourish you. You’ll also avoid the whole sweet-binge followed by savoury-binge that cravings can cause as you’ll be reasonably full after three of these amaze-balls.
Furthermore, by avoiding the animal protein in a standard chocolate, you could help to shift your microbiota more towards a Prevotella dominant type (found in vegans, is anti-inflammatory) rather than a Bacteroides dominant type. This might be of particular interest to anyone wanting to lose weight as Bacteroides type could be associated with putting on weight too easily as this type of bacteria is very efficient at extracting calories from food and passing them to their host.
So here’s the recipe, it’s easy, providing you have a processor:
- 250g of walnuts
- 250g pecan nuts
- 500g dates
- 3 tbsp cacao powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Soak the dates in boiled water for about 10 minutes to soften and to draw out any little bugs, then drain
- Process the nuts until they're pretty smooth and starting to stick together
- Add the dates and vanilla and process further until you get a smooth texture
- Remove mixture from processor and form into balls. The ones above are coated in desiccated coconut, some freeze-dried raspberries and just some plain cacao powder.
