Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Healthy Carrot Cake - Health Benefits

Healthy Carrot Cake

The taste sensation of blueberries, cranberries, dates, almonds, and carrots makes this the favorite of my healthy carrot cake recipes—and don’t skimp on the spices, either.  Make sure the dates are really well incorporated into the water, as this is what gives the cake most of its sweetness.


Ingredients
2 cups (500 mL) whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking soda
2 teaspoon (10 mL) cinnamon
1 teaspoon (5 mL) ground ginger
1 teaspoon (5 mL) allspice
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) salt
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) water
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) dates, finely chopped
1/3 cup (75 mL) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1 cup (250 mL) shredded carrots
1 cup (250 mL) slivered almonds
½  cup (125 mL) dried blueberries
½ cup (125 mL) dried cranberries


Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F (180° C). Lightly oil a loaf pan.  Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan, then stir in dates and orange juice concentrate.  Turn off heat and allow to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.  In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt.  Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, then stir in carrots, almonds, blueberries, and cranberries until just combined.  Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.  Bake for 50-55 minutes.


The Health Benefits of Carrots

The carrot is an excellent vegetable as it has both nutritional and medicinal values which are essential for our optimum health.
Carrot is an edible root vegetable which is originated from Asia. It gains high respect in Western countries as it has been regarded as the best dishes for its outstanding nutritional and medicinal values. Even Dutch have listed carrot as one of their national dishes.

Carrot contains a very complete nutrition to provide our body the essential enzymes, vitamins and minerals. For each 100 gram, the carrot has 7.6 gram of carbohydrate, 0.6 gram of protein, 0.3 gram of fat, 30 milligram of calcium and 0.6 milligram of iron. Also, it is a good source of fiber, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin K, biotin, potassium and thiamine.


Carrot also offers an excellence source of beta-carotene, which is 3.62milligram (equivalent to 1981 international unit for the value of vitamin A) in each 100 gram of carrots. Many studies have shown that carrot provide us the highest amount of beta-carotene among the list of vegetables we always consume everyday.

The best thing of carrot is that it is easily assimilated by our body. Chinese practitioners said that carrot tastes sweet, and it is good for the health of spleen and stomach. It is also believed to improve impotence (lower sexual drive), sexual dysfunction, night blindness, long term cough (or call hundred days cough in Chinese medical prescription) besides strengthening kidney and eliminating excessive wind and cold in our body.

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