These truly are Supernatural Brownies; they’re righteously fudgy, satisfyingly dense, impossibly packable, surprisingly complex in flavor and never too sweet…and yet they’re made with simple ingredients, that we all have, and know, and love. AND they’re the perfect thing for active bodies to be eating, treating and enjoying during this winter season.
This month’s “theme” (if I can call it that,” has been resetting. At home, I’ve been taking time to reset and reorganize practices, re-evaluate my internal and external spaces, and give a good think to whether or not joy has been infused into my little world in ample measure. I’ve been sharing recipes for resetting the body, and the way we think about the foods we eat and how we eat them (see this, this and this!) and while this Supernatural Brownie recipe may look *hypothetically* like other brownies out there, this is also a recipe shared in the spirit of reset: resetting the way we think about brownies, and butter, and sugar, and treats to be precise.
If you haven’t heard me say before, I’ll yell it from the rooftops now: THERE ARE NO GOOD AND BAD FOODS. (The exception to this rule are items that are in packages that contain more non-food ingredients than actual nutrients, and these frankly are NOT food.) No goods-or-bads is the philosophy that I wholeheartedly believe, and practice. And it’s what the ancient texts of Ayurveda tell us too. What determines whether food will serve you, or not serve you well has everything to do with the why, how, where, when of eating it. If you’re sitting on a couch, watching T.V., wallowing in grief, eating one (or a pan) of these Supernatural Brownies is not going to serve you very well. But if you’re a body in motion, filling your day with high-achieving activities and interactions, training, exercise or movement, and plenty of brain stimulation than slicing off one of these sweet little treats is going to serve your body quite well in this winter season. Here’s why:
The diet myths that imprinted in our brains and our parents brains that “butter is bad,” are long dead so let’s just leave them right here. Fat is not bad for us, in fact the fats that naturally occur in plant and animal foods are particularly IMPORTANT for us to consume, particularly if we’re active. Butter is rich in vitamins A, D, E and K, as well as trace elements and these vitamins are more easily absorbed from butter than from other sources. We need that fat to lubricate bones, joints and ligaments, and to grease the neuropathways in our brains so that we can ride harder, run faster, anticipate features on a trail with more speed, and make critical decisions about race (and life!) strategy faster.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, butter is sweet. Sweet foods naturally cool and reduce inflammation in the body (butter does not INCREASE inflammation unless there is already inflammation existent in the system!) Butter soothes vata and pitta doshas, improves digestion and nutrient absorption. See the recipe notes for how to smartly substitute butter in this recipe if your constitution or belief system require you to make a swap, but if you’re just afraid of eating butter please don’t be! Eating butter in moderation does not increase cholesterol or make you “fat.” In fact, it can keep things running smoothly internally so that weight gain does NOT happen.
Indeed – eating processed sugars in excess can be very harmful for our health, normal blood sugar levels and digestive system. To be clear, ALL SUGARS are refined to some degree; honey is taken from hives and clarified, maple is tapped, agave nectar is distilled, etc. The refined sugars that are harmful to our health are those that are harvested, dried, stripped of their nutrients and bleached, and occasionally refortified with additives. If you see a bag of sugar on the shelf at the grocery store that reads “granulated sugar,” don’t bother picking it up. Instead, look for bags of sugar in grains that read “cane sugar,” “natural brown sugar,” turbinado sugar,” and the like. These are sugars that have been refined, but that still contain all of the nutrients and nutritional properties that we need them to have. And THEN, they’re powerful ingredients for us to eat as active people.
And yet, cravings for sweet things has also been vilified. Cravings for sweet flavors is not the same as a craving for sugar, and if we don’t learn the difference we’re doing a massive disservice to the body and our performance. Sweet cravings arise in the body when we’re not consuming enough carbohydrates on a regular basis, when we’re eating foods that yo-yo our blood sugar, when we eat meals that are lacking one or more of the Six Tastes , or when we aren’t responding to hunger or specific food cravings. They don’t arise because sugar is a villain in and of itself.
Sweet foods are the foods that nourish, fortify and bolster our bodies with nutrients necessary for training, competition, and getting after it in sport and life. Foods like fruits, grains, root vegetables, dairy products, meat, and sweet potatoes are all sweet foods that will sate these cravings — not just brownies.
But sometimes brownies are appropriate. The sugar used here is sweet – just like butter – and has a natural anti-inflammatory impact on the body (when inflammation in the system and specifically the digestive tract is not present on account of other stimuli.) Consuming sugars and sweeteners is one of the fastest ways to replace glycogen in the body, making these brownies a pretty great thing to pack on a ski tour, bike ride, big run or hike or to enjoy immediately after your endurance activity as part of your recovery meal.
…yet another food that we’ve given a villainous label, chocolate is a powerhouse of nutrients, especially as used here in these brownies.
When we choose to use dark chocolates (those 70% and higher,) we’re choosing to use a product that has far less dairy and sweetener than chocolate compounds. This means that our bodies get to benefit from all of the bitter, anti-inflammatory benefits of this ancient superfood. Chocolate (and more specifically cacao,) helps improve circulation, is high in magnesium and anti-oxidants, and helps to stimulate digestion.
Without further ado, I’ll let you get after this favorite recipe that has been on repeat in our house, tweaked and tweaked until the fudginess was top notch. The molasses and spices are not to be missed; molasses is one of the reasons these brownies have such a complex flavor and chewy texture, even when cold. And the spices help the body to digest a dense and sweet brownie, plus add to the deliciousness factor.
Winter is the time of year to enjoy these denser, more decadent treats because this is the time of year when our bodies are craving, and requiring more nutrients to stockpile for an explosive spring AND to use for our cold-weather adventures so we’ve been taking these brownies on our backcountry ski missions, big bike rides, and nibbling on little pieces at night when we just want something sweet. This has been a beloved way to give my body (and all of our ski buddies too!) exactly what our bodies are asking for.
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