Do you remember making rice crispy treats when you were little? I remember thinking that it was the most delightful process – stirring all of that sticky, goopy stuff together in the bowl and watching as it magically coagulated into a cloying little square that never seemed to disintegrate no matter how tightly I held it in my tiny hot hand, no matter how long it lived in my damp swim bag. In any weather, in any situation – those little rice crispy treats survived, stayed crispy, stayed sweet, and I loved them for that.
I still love a rice crispy treat. For quite a few reasons. The ease of putting it all together, one. The crunchiness, the sweetness, the nostalgia, two, three and four. And, there’s a metaphor in there too. The more I learn about the ways our bodies digest our food, the more I understand about just why those little rice crispy treats are so indestructible + impossible to part with (in all the ways, ahem.)
And, the more I want to teach you how to make a better one (and, to apply the metaphor to everything you eat!)
The rice crispy treats of our childhood are so indestructible because they’re built with bomb proof ingredients. The building blocks are simple: crispy rice cereal, marshmallows and butter. The crisp rice cereal has literally been engineered not to break down in milk, or to sink to the bottom of the cereal bowl, (which is why they snap, crackle + pop – creating a buoyant structure as the milk starts to break down their crunchy exterior.) Add butter, which is substantial and stout and lovely on its own and when mixed with sugar. And, lastly good old-fashioned American marshmallows, which can be run over by a car, sat in the rain for hours, and probably dipped into a vat of acid (which, includes our stomachs) and still not break down.
Marshmallows are a magical thing, in principle. When made at home, (possible! yes!) they’re made of the simplest ingredients – literally sugar, water and some invert sugar (which is the fancy, science-y, pastry chef term for liquid sugar – most often corn syrup, glucose syrup or even maple or honey.) You cook the ingredients to just the right temperature and this mixture turns into a gummy, very sticky mass that – when whipped vigorously with air and combined with gelatin – becomes dreamy, puffy and fluffy. This ethereal edible magic is pretty difficult to eff with. It’s hard to wash out, hard to wipe off, hard to unstick. You can torch it with fire, but even then it’s going to stick harder. And it’s just the glue that rice crispy treats need to make them bouncy, invincible and so darn good.
While superpowers are attractive on a superhero, they’re less attractive to our bodies that actually need our food to break down so we can use them as nourishment to power our vibrant lives. And here’s where I break your heart: close your eyes and combine all of these things in the bowl: the unsinkable cereal, the stout butter, the magical + magically unbreakable mallows. And, in modern times if you’re buying instead of making your rice crispy treats, you probably have some gums, fillers, stabilizers and other non-foods tossed in there too. You have a truly unf*ckable substance, right? And this is what your body thinks too. The qualities that these things have on the outside of the body are absolutely reflected on the inside. If a car can run over a rice crispy treat, squash it into the ground and leave it in the sun for a day, all without changing its composition, what makes us think that our body’s digestive system can be any more productive? (Whomp whomp.)
Ten year old me would not have cared in the least that my body wouldn’t love eating a rice crispy treat as much as my brain. Part of me wants to not care now. But I’m an effing adult. And I have stuff to do. I need my body to use the food that I eat for energy.
It takes about 6 hours for our bodies to break down most of the things we eat. The easy stuff – the veggies, meat, legumes, fruits etc. But, when our bodies can’t break down our foods, those things get stuck in our digestive tract until we CAN break them down. This can take days. Months, or even longer. And all the while, this “stuff” is just hanging out in the digestive system, a little bit like the trash that you forgot to take out last week (and having the same effect on the quality of life inside your body as it would in your home.) This indigestible trash causes a whole host of problems and issues. It causes irritation in the digestive tract, which leads to conditions like food allergies, skin rashes, acne, IBS, constipation, bloating, nutrient deficiency and more. And, it reduces the strength of our microbiome too – the billions of tiny microbes responsible for digestion, circulation and beyond. The job of breaking down a delicious but generally impervious rice crispy treat is a bit like hacking away at Mt. Everest with a ball-peen hammer + hoping to watch it crumble to submission. Unlikely to happen fast.
How do we make food choices to avoid this fallout in our bodies? How do we choose foods that we can digest easily AND enjoy to the utmost degree? It’s easier than we think. First, we’ve got to consider the qualities of what we’re eating. Choosing foods that are magical because nature made them that way, instead of being engineered to be magic is one of those ways. Knowing that when we DO eat something that will be challenging, to give our bodies a little bit of help to make it happen – having a digestive tea, or enjoying an easier-to-digest dinner if you’re going to have a crazy-challenging dessert. Stuff like that.
There’s another little rule that I use when I am determining whether or not to eat something, especially if it comes from a package. I read the ingredient list on the package, and consider whether I would eat all of those things together in a bowl with a spoon. If eating the broken down components of something with a bowl and spoon doesn’t sound appetizing, chances are high that your body won’t love you eating them in any other form either. This rings true for smoothies (would you really eat protein powder with peanut butter and spinach and, and, and, in a bowl without the blender? Me neither. And our bodies hate smoothies!) as well as highly processed foods.
With respect to the rice crispy treat example, I would probably still eat cereal in a bowl with melted marshmallows and butter. I mean, right? But it also sounds like a pretty uncomfortable dining experience – sticky, crunchy and all. I would definitely need something to wash it down. And so probably pass. But these Strawberry Tahini Rice Crispy Treats are totally something that I’d eat with a bowl + spoon. Let’s get down to business with them!
This recipe doesn’t call for any ‘mallows, but a few other ingredients create that good, edible (and digestible!) glue that will help your treats to stay stout, even in a pocket or pack but probably not in a rain storm or under the weight of a truck. The coconut butter, maple syrup and tahini in this recipe recreate a mallow like texture, without any of the sugar-cooking magic. These ingredients also contain minerals, nutrients and fiber that actually help our bodies to process them. Think of those minerals and fiber like the traction on your mountain bike tires. Without the traction, your tires are likely to get caught in the mud. It’s going to take a long time to wheel your way along the trail, you’ll be swerving and slipping. But with traction, you can churn along the surface. This is what happens to your food in your digestive tract. The more traction, the more speed, the more the wheels of your gut can do their job.
Other great things about these treats; they’re fast, fun, delicious, so so easy, and completely free of gluten, dairy and refined sugars. They’re great for big people and little people alike, and a wonderful option for those pool days coming up, long rides, hikes or even served as dessert at your next gathering with friends. The topping of hemp seeds and berries make them pretty, and pretty special to eat too. And, it makes them all the prettier if you’re eating them in a bowl with a spoon, ya know?
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