Tiramisu Crunch Bites

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

It’s coffee, it’s creamy, it’s nutty, it’s chocolatey, what’s not to love? It has all the well-loved flavors of tiramisu, but this recipe is a simple one, and it’s essentially stuffed dates in a way you’ve never had them before. They’re delectable, decadent, and decidedly good for your health. These things are little nutrient-bombs that’ll keep you reaching for more.

You will need

  • Coffee (we will discuss this)
  • 150g (5.5oz) mascarpone (if vegan or lactose-intolerant, can be substituted with vegan varieties, or at a pinch, pressed silken tofu)
  • 500g (1lb) dates (Medjool are ideal)
  • Twice as many almonds as you have dates
  • 50g (2oz) dark chocolate (the darkest, bitterest, you can find)
  • Edible flower petals if you can source them (some shops sell dried rose petals for this purpose)

Method

(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

1) Take the mascarpone and whisk (or blend) it with the coffee. What kind of coffee, you ask? Many will use instant coffee (1tbsp granules mixed with enough boiling water to dissolve it), and that is actually healthiest (counterintuitive but true) but if you care for flavor over health, and have the means to make espresso, make it ristretto (so, stop it halfway through filling up an espresso cup), let it cool, and use that. Absolute bonus for flavor (not for health): if you have the means to make Turkish coffee, use an equivalent amount of that (again, cooled).

You will now have coffee-flavoured mascarpone. It’s great for your gut and full of antioxidant polyphenols. Set it aside for the moment.

2) Take the dark chocolate and melt it. Please don’t microwave it or try to do it in a pan directly over the hob; instead, you will need to use a Bain-Marie. If you don’t have one made-for-purpose, you can place a metal or heatproof glass bowl in a saucepan, with something to stop it from touching the floor of the pan. Then boil water in the pan (without letting the water get into the bowl), and melt the chocolate in the bowl—this will allow you to melt it evenly without burning the chocolate.

You will now have melted dark chocolate. It has its own set of polyphenols, and is great for everything from the brain to the gut microbiome.

3) Cut the dates lengthways on one side and remove the stone. Stuff them carefully with the coffee-flavored mascarpone (you can use a teaspoon, or use a piping kit if you have one). Add a couple of almonds to each one. Place them all on a big plate, and drizzle the melted chocolate over them. Add the petals if you have them.

The dates and almonds deliver extra vitamins and minerals in abundance (not to mention, lots of fiber), and also are an amazing combination even just by themselves. With the mascarpone and chocolate added, this winning on new levels. We’re not done yet, though…

4) Chill them in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Serve!

Learn more

For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

Enjoy!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Marrakesh Sorghum Salad
  • Pink Himalayan Salt: Health Facts
    Sodium chloride remains consistent across all salts, including popular pink Himalayan; opt for ‘reduced sodium’ options to better manage intake.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Can You Repair Your Own Teeth At Home?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝I liked your article on tooth remineralization, I saw a “home tooth repair kit”, and wondered if it is as good as what dentists do, or at least will do the job well enough to save a dentist visit?❞

    Firstly, for any wondering about the tooth remineralization, here you go:

    Tooth Remineralization: How To Heal Your Teeth Naturally

    Now, to answer your question, we presume you are talking about something like this kit available on Amazon. In which case, some things to bear in mind:

    • This kind of thing is generally intended as a stop-gap measure until you see a dentist, because you cracked your tooth or lost a filling or something today, and will see the dentist next week, say.
    • This kind of thing is not what Dr. Michelle Jorgensen was talking about in another video* that we wrote about; rather, it is using a polymer filler to rebuild what is missing. The key difference is: this is using plastic, which is not what your teeth are made of, so it will never “take” as part of the tooth, as some biomimetic dentistry options can do.
    • Yes, this does also mean you are putting microplastics (because the powder is usually micronized polymer beads with zinc oxide, to which you add a liquid to create a paste that will set) in your mouth and quite possibly right next to an open blood supply depending on what’s damaged and whether capillaries were reaching it.
    • Because of the different material and application method, the adhesion is nothing like professional fillings (be they metal or resin), and thus the chances of it coming out again or so high that it’s more a question of when, rather than if.
    • If you have damage under there (as we presume you do in any scenario where you are using this), then if it’s not professionally cleaned before the filling goes in, then it can get infected, and (less dramatically, but still importantly) any extant decay can also get worse. We say “professionally”, because you will not be able to do an adequate job with your toothbrush, floss, etc at home, and even if you got dentist’s tools (which you can buy, by the way, but we don’t recommend), you will no more be able to do the same quality job as a dentist who has done that many times a day every day for the past 20 years, as buying expensive paintbrushes would make you able to restore a Renaissance painting without messing it up.

    *See: Dangers Of Root Canals And Crowns, & What To Do Instead ← what she recommends instead is biomimetic dentistry, which is also more prosaically called “conservative restorative dentistry”, i.e. it tries to conserve as much as possible, replace lost material on a like-for-like basis, and generally end up with a result that’s as close to natural as possible.

    In other words, the short answer to your question is “no, sorry, it isn’t and it won’t”

    However! A just like it’s good to have a first aid kit in the house even if it won’t do the same job as an ambulance crew, it can be good to have a tooth repair kit (essentially, a tooth first-aid kit) in the house, precisely to use it just as a stop-gap measure in the event that you one day crack a tooth or lose a filling or such, and don’t want to leave it open to all things in the meantime.

    (The results of this sort of kit are so not long-term in nature that it will be quick and easy for your dentist to remove it to do their own job once you get there)

    If in doubt, always see your dentist as soon as possible, as many things are a lot less work to treat now, than to treat later. Just, make sure to advocate for yourself and what you actually want/need, and don’t let them upsell you on something you didn’t come in for while you’re sitting in their chair—that’s a conversation to be had in advance with a clear head and no pressure (and nobody’s hands in your mouth)!

    See also: Dentists Are Pulling ‘Healthy’ and Treatable Teeth To Profit From Implants, Experts Warn

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Does Eating Shellfish Contribute To Gout?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝I have a question about seafood as healthy, doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to gout?❞

    It can do! Gout (a kind of inflammatory arthritis characterized by the depositing of uric acid crystals in joints) has many risk factors, and diet is one component, albeit certainly the most talked-about one.

    First, you may be wondering: isn’t all arthritis inflammatory? Since arthritis is by definition the inflammation of joints, this is a reasonable question, but when it comes to classifying the kinds, “inflammatory” arthritis is caused by inflammation, while “non-inflammatory” arthritis (a slightly confusing name) merely has inflammation as one of its symptoms (and is caused by physical wear-and-tear). For more information, see:

    As for gout specifically, top risk factors include:

    • Increasing age: risk increases with age
    • Being male: women do get gout, but much less often
    • Hypertension: all-cause hypertension is the biggest reasonably controllable factor

    There’s not a lot we can do about age (but of course, looking after our general health will tend to slow biological aging, and after all, diseases only care about the state of our body, not what the date on the calendar is).

    As for sex, this risk factor is hormones, and specifically has to do with estrogen and testosterone’s very different effects on the immune system (bearing in mind that chronic inflammation is a disorder of the immune system). However, few if any men would take up feminizing hormone therapy just to lower their gout risk!

    That leaves hypertension, which happily is something that we can all (barring extreme personal circumstances) do quite a bit about. Here’s a good starting point:

    Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt

    …and for further pointers:

    How To Lower Your Blood Pressure (Cardiologists Explain)

    As for diet specifically (and yes, shellfish):

    The largest study into this (and thus, one of the top ones cited in a lot of other literature) looked at 47,150 men with no history of gout at the baseline.

    So, with the caveat that their findings could have been different for women, they found:

    • Eating meat in general increased gout risk
      • Narrowing down specific meats: beef, pork, and lamb were the worst offenders
    • Eating seafood in general increased gout risk
      • Narrowing down specific seafoods: all seafoods increased gout risk within a similar range
      • As a specific quirk of seafoods: the risk was increased if the man had a BMI under 25
    • Eating dairy in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
      • Narrowing down specific dairy foods: low-fat dairy products such as yogurt were associated with a decreased risk of gout
    • Eating purine-rich vegetables in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
      • Narrowing down to specific purine-rich vegetables: no purine-rich vegetable was associated with an increase in the risk of gout

    Dairy products were included in the study, as dairy products in general and non-fermented dairy products in particular are often associated with increased inflammation. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to gout risk.

    Purine-rich vegetables were included in the study, as animal products highest in purines have typically been found to have the worst effect on gout. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to plants with purines.

    You can read the full study here:

    Purine-Rich Foods, Dairy and Protein Intake, and the Risk of Gout in Men

    So, the short answer to your question of “doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to the risk of gout” is:

    Yes, it can, but occasional consumption probably won’t result in gout unless you have other risk factors going against you.

    If you’re a slim male 80-year-old alcoholic smoker with hypertension, then definitely do consider skipping the lobster, but honestly, there may be bigger issues to tackle there.

    And similarly, obviously skip it if you have a shellfish allergy, and if you’re vegan or vegetarian or abstain from shellfish for religious reasons, then you can certainly live very healthily without ever having any.

    See also: Do We Need Animal Products, To Be Healthy?

    For most people most of the time, a moderate consumption of seafood, including shellfish if you so desire, is considered healthy.

    As ever, do speak with your own doctor to know for sure, as your individual case may vary.

    For reference, this question was surely prompted by the article:

    Lobster vs Crab – Which is Healthier?

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Egg Whites vs Whole Eggs – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing egg whites to whole eggs, we picked the whole eggs.

    Why?

    Egg whites are mostly protein. Egg yolks are mostly fat, with some protein.

    However, fat ≠ bad, and the yolk is also where the choline is stored, which itself (as well as its benefits for your brain) will tend to reduce fat storage in the body.

    Furthermore, the yolk contains an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids. After all, the yolk is there specifically to contain everything needed to turn a cluster of cells into a small bird.

    Read more: Eggs: All Things In Moderation?

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Marrakesh Sorghum Salad
  • Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝Is it good to eat farm raised fish?❞

    We’ll answer this as a purely health-related question (and thus not considering economy, ecology, ethics, or taste).

    It’s certainly not as good as wild-caught fish, for several reasons, some more serious than others:

    Farmed fish can have quite a different nutritional profile to wild-caught fish, and also contain more contaminants, including heavy metals.

    For example, farmed fish tend to have much higher fat content for the same amount of protein, but lower levels of minerals and other nutrients. Here are two side-by-side:

    Wild-caught salmon | Farmed salmon

    See also:

    Quantitative analysis of the benefits and risks of consuming farmed and wild salmon

    Additionally, because fish in fish farms tend to be very susceptible to diseases (because of the artificially cramped and overcrowded environment), fish farms tend to make heavy use of antibiotics, which can cause all sorts of problems down the line:

    Extended antibiotic treatment in salmon farms select multiresistant gut bacteria with a high prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes

    So definitely, “let the buyer beware”!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • The Connection Cure – by Julia Hotz

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    You may recognize some of the things in the subtitle as being notable elements of the Blue Zones supercentenarians’ lifestyles, but this book looks at numerous quite diverse countries, and people from many walks of life.

    What they have in common—and this is mostly a very person-centered book, relying a lot on case studies, with additional references coming from wider sociological data—is social prescribing.

    What is social prescribing? That’s what the author (a journalist by general profession) answers comprehensively here, and it’s about looking at the ways medical problems can often have nonmedical solutions. It doesn’t necessarily mean that walking will cure your cancer or art will cure your diabetes, but it does mean that very often a key part of an unhealthy lifestyle is fundamentally something that can be fixed by one or more of: movement, nature, art, service, and belonging.

    She looks at social prescribing in its birthplace (the UK, where cheap solutions that are nevertheless evidence-based are very much prioritized), in big countries like Canada and Australia, in aging countries like Singapore and South Korea, and yes, also in the #1 country of pill prescribing, the US.

    The structure of the book is interesting, we first have 5 person-centered chapters addressing each of the social prescribing aspects and how they helped in two example case studies for each one, then 5 country-by-country epidemiological chapters looking at the big picture, then 5 person-centered chapters again, this time looking at personalizing social prescribing for oneself (this section of the book being headed “Social Prescribing For You And Me”), looking at what is going on in one’s life and health, which of the 5 elements might be missing, and what tangible goal-oriented benefits can—according to the evidence—be obtained by tending to what one actually needs in terms of social prescribing.

    The style is narrative and journalistic, with very little hard science, but very little that’s wishy-washy either. It is, in short, a pleasant and informative read that helps the reader really understand social prescribing, the better to implement it in our own lives.

    Bottom line: if you like having extra nonmedical approaches to avoid or alleviate medical problems, then this book will really help you achieve that.

    Click here to check out The Connection Cure, and get social prescribing!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Brussels Sprouts vs Spirulina – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing Brussels sprouts to spirulina, we picked the sprouts.

    Why?

    Pitting these two well-known superfoods against each other, we get the following:

    Looking at the macros first, spirulina has a little more protein, while sprouts have more carbs and nearly 10x the fiber. So, we call this a win for sprouts.

    In terms of vitamins, sprouts have a lot more of vitamins A, B6, B9, C, E, K, and choline, while spirulina has a little more of vitamins B1, B2, and B3. An easy win for sprouts.

    In the category of minerals, sprouts have more calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while spirulina has more copper and iron. Another clear win for sprouts.

    Adding up the sections makes the winner very clear: Brussels sprouts enjoy a well-earned victory.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    A Deeper Dive Into Seaweed

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: