I need help! People who know food and desserts especially!

[purplemuffin]

So, today is my mom's birthday. They have been on this diet since July and have actually been doing really great--each of them have lost over 50 pounds since starting it, and they've been doing really well to stay on it.

It's the "Suzanne Somers Diet"

Basically the diet is meant to work with digestion and insulin levels--you eat things only in certain order/combinations in a way that prevents your insulin from spiking and stops your body from absorbing fat. There are a lot of really nice yummy recipes in there, but honestly, the only really good ones are meat based. Anything related to veggies, fruit, wheat, or dessert just falls apart.

She really wanted to stick to her diet today, so she baked one of the cakes that was in the recipe book, hoping it would taste alright. Now, there is definitely a different 'taste' to healthy desserts, but I know you can make HEALTHY foods taste awesome with some creativity and thought. Some of the best cakes I've ever had were vegan, sugar free, or some other kind of health version of the dessert.

But this cake.. Was really awful. Right from the start, the recipe is just bland and bitter. She even changed it up so it would be sweeter, but even still, it just wasn't GOOD. It was sort of like someone just took a regular cake recipe, just took out certain ingredients and guestimated how much fake sweetener to add instead without even trying it. Mom was really disappointed, mostly because we had this huge party for her, and she tried really hard to make it a special time, but then when you see everyone take a single bite out of a cake you made and put it down, it's kind of depressing. She couldn't even finish her piece.

So I'm kind of frustrated. I don't like a lot of the recipes in there honestly. I just don't think she hired a good dessert chef to write most of them.


Anyway I sort of ranted, sorry, back to the point.

I want to make something awesome for her since her party and cake just didn't turn out how she wanted it to.

She's not allowed to mix fruit with anything, so a fruity dessert is out. Chocolate is fine, but it has to have no real sugar, and so far the sugar free cakes in her diet book are SO BITTER! And not even dark chocolate bitter, a weird bitter. (and I love dark chocolate and bitter desserts! The darker the chocolate, the more I like it generally!)

She's not allowed to mix carbs with fats, so it can't have milk and wheat together. The cake she had today was sugar/wheat free chocolate cake.

Actually, here are the mixing rules for the diet:
5 groups: protein, carbs, fats, veggies, fruit
Protein can only mix with veggies and fats
Carbs can only mix with veggies(but can have non-fat cheese or something)
Fruit must be eaten alone on an empty stomach

Does anyone know recipes that could help, or have tips on making something special? I know there are a lot of creative cooks out there, and there must be something that tastes better than the options they were given. They don't have all of the Somers books, so who knows, maybe one of them has better desserts than the ones we do have, but the point is--the ones we have are NOT that good!

Any health conscious dessert chefs out there? I would love to have any sort of advice. Anything from cookies, brownies, cakes, something I could make for my mom that would make up for this flop!


I know nothing tastes quite like a 'real' dessert, but we aren't spoiled on the bad stuff. There are a lot of amazing healthier dessert options. A good recipe is a good recipe, you know?

I know this is a really tricky question. But if anyone has gone through a diet/lifestyle change like this and knows some tasty things I would love to hear them! Even if you don't have a full recipe but have tips that should be workable for a diet like this!


It's just not fun to have a sad birthday and you shouldn't have to cheat to eat something amazing!


Thanks for any comments guys. I can't wait to hear what people have to say!

[dsirkle]

Google dessert recipes using Splenda. It tastes like sugar but isn't. Find a recipe that meets all the criteria of the particular diet.

[purplemuffin]

Well, I was sort of hoping for people who may have had an actual experience with eating the dessert who could tell me 'yes, it's good!' since we've had pretty bad experiences so far.

We do have and use splenda, just most of the recipes we've been given have not been the best! Honestly a lot of them are like the early world of vegetarian food--before people realized you could be creative and actually cook with veggies!

But thanks. I'll just have to experiment on my own through google and hope I find something good if no one else answers