We both have sweet tooths and are always looking at ways to make desserts and sweet treats more healthy. When making desserts, we often replace the butter with olive oil to decrease the saturated fat and increase our intake of good monounsaturated fats. We also like to decrease the total fat content by replacing the butter with a low fat yoghurt or using cocoa powder instead of chocolate. When it comes to sweetening desserts without sugar, there are several things you can do such as using fruit or dates. However, this is not always appropriate as it can alter the texture flavour and chemistry of your baking.

We came across a product which could be used as a one for one substitute for sugar. Natvia is a natural sweetener derived from Stevia (a sweet herb) and Erythritol (a plant sugar) and contains 95% fewer calories than sugar.

Here are just a few of our healthy creations using Natvia.

The exciting news is, Natvia would like to give 13 lucky ‘The Nutrition Guru and The Chef’ readers the chance to win a free 200g canister of Natvia! All you have to do is:

Use the SHARE button at the bottom: to post this article to your facebook timeline.
If you haven’t already: ‘Like’ our FACEBOOK PAGE
Drop us a comment on our wall stating: why you would like to ‘Live the sweet life with Natvia’.
Winner will be drawn based on the most inspiring response. Competition closes midnight 12th July, 2012.

And it’s perfect timing too!

Natvia are currently running ‘ The Sugar Free Bake-Off’ where all you have to do is submit your Natvia creation/creations! Click on the picture below to reveal all the details of this exciting competition. We entered last month, and won an electronic soup maker~! So start by entering our competition to win yourself some Natvia and use it to get baking and enter the Sugar Free Bake-off! Best of luck!

Healthy Plum and Yoghurt Cake (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Healthy(er) Tiramisu (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Sugar Free Choc Cookies (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Milk Jelly with Rhubarb and Rose Syrup – a healthy sweet treat (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Apple and Peach Crumble (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Winter Warmer – CHOCOLATE MUG PUDDING. Quick, easy and low sugar (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Healthy Chocolate Date Loaf (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
Little Healthy Pumpkin and Olive Oil Cakes (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)
A healthy Custard tart? Are you for real? YES WE ARE! (thenutritionguruandthechef.wordpress.com)

Stay happy and healthy…The Nutrition Guru and The Chef.

Our blog was designed to share our recipes, promote healthy eating and inform our readers of new and exciting things. We only make mention of products we genuinely like, and establishments we genuinely like to eat at.