Craving Sugar? Nine Healthy Ways to Satisfy a Sweet Tooth

The craving for sugar is one of the hardest to beat. Here are some healthy ways to indulge your sugar cravings, without blowing your diet.

1. Chocolate Dipped Fruit

Instead of gobbling down an entire chocolate bar when you get a sugar cravings, try some chocolate covered fruit. Fruit dipped in real melted chocolate can give you a taste of something sweet, along with vitamins and dietary fiber to help regulate blood sugar levels. For a lower calorie option, try dipping bananas, melon or apples into low calorie chocolate syrup. For an even more decadent treat, try dipping a marshmallow.

2. Yogurt

There's more than one way to transform ordinary plain or flavored yogurt into a tasty sweet. Add honey or a splash of orange juice concentrate to plain yogurt to spice it up. Layer flavored yogurt, crunchy granola and berries in a glass for a healthy parfait. Blend yogurt and fruit together for a high protein, nutritious smoothie.

3. Baked Apples

Baked apples make a delicious dessert. Core your apples, then stuff them with raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake whole, cored apples at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

4. Fruit and Yogurt Popsicles

You can make your own all fruit popsicles by blending your favorite fruits and then freezing them in a popsicle mold. If you don't have a popsicle mold, fill paper cups halfway with your blended fruit mixture and then add wooden craft sticks before freezing. You can also make frozen yogurt popsicles with the remains of your healthy fruit and yogurt smoothies, or purchase all fruit popsicles from any grocery shop.

5. Fruit Salad

Fruit salad is a great way to make ordinary fruit more interesting, since it offers an intriguing mix of tastes and textures. Add sugar free vanilla pudding and try more interesting fruits like kiwi, mandarin oranges, raspberries and cherries.

6. Dark Chocolate

Unlike milk chocolate and white chocolate, dark chocolate is high in antioxidants and can help prevent tooth decay, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression. Dark chocolate is still a high calorie food, so you shouldn't eat a lot of it, but there is definitely a place for dark chocolate in a healthy diet. Have a square or two of dark chocolate each day to beat your sugar cravings.

7. Light Ice Cream Float

You can make a low calorie, healthy ice cream float from diet soda and light ice cream. Root beer goes well with vanilla ice cream, or you can try diet cherry cola and chocolate ice cream or diet cola and strawberry ice cream.

8. Applesauce

Applesauce, pear sauce and other fruit sauces are sweet, tasty and high in vitamins. They also contain high levels of dietary soluble fiber, which can regulate your blood sugar levels to control future sugar cravings.

9. Frozen Yogurt

Frozen yogurt is lower in calories than ice cream and offers protein and calcium. Use frozen yogurt as an ice cream substitute in any dessert that requires ice cream.

1. Prev:Craving Carbs? 3 Healthy Ways to Satisfy Your Craving
2. Next:7 Healthy Ways to Satisfy Your Chocolate Cravings