RUSTIC CARROT CAKE

Carrot cake is one of my favorite desserts. This recipe is more like a muffin in texture but packs a lot of flavor. It was sweeter than I was expecting due to the concentrated fructose in the raisins and dates, addition of vanilla, plus my homemade milk is sweetened with dates/vanilla. No need for the maple "powdered" sugar option on top. It was so good I felt an inclination to overeat, but resisted.

You can find the recipe at “Monkey and Me”: Rustic Carrot Cake.

Calorie density is the number of calories per volume or weight of food. The more water and fiber a food has, the lower the calorie density because water and fiber don’t add calories:

Raisins have 100 calories in 1/4th cup

Grapes have 100 calories in 1 cup

Here is a 2 minute news interview with Dr. Nandi about dried fruit.

For Dr. Greger's "Daily Dozen" he considers a fruit serving to be either:

1/2 cup fresh or frozen berries

1 cup cut up fresh fruit (other than berries)

1/4th cup of any dried fruit

1 medium sized whole fruit (other than berries)

What I did differently:

-Made my own oat flour by processing rolled oats in my high speed blender

-Used quick cooking oats (not instant) instead of processing regular rolled oats in a food processor

-Used my homemade milk which is 2/3 oat milk and 1/3 almond milk sweetened with dates/vanilla

-Reduced salt to 1/4th tsp

-I did not have Medjool dates so used 15 Deglet Noor dates (they are smaller)

-Lined the entire baking dish with parchment paper including the sides. It lifted out easily after cooling.