Best Sweets, Diet & Footprint, Sodas & Liver, Weight Loss

Happy New Year! 2025

In This Issue: 

• Best Healthy Sweeteners
• Shrink Your Footprint with Diet
• Sodas & Liver Disease
• Cumin & Saffron for Weight Loss

Find lots of healthy recipes in my Whole Food Plant-Based, Gluten Free Diet & Recipes Facebook Group

Message from Bernadette Wulf

Greetings,

Here’s wishing you all the best in 2025!

This Month

Sweets add a lot of joy to life, but some sweets can boost your health while others undermine your immune system and fill your liver with fat.

You’ve probably guessed that it’s the refined sugars and artificial sweeteners that do the worst damage and you would be right — as you will see in the article about sodas and fatty liver disease.

But what about the healthy sweets? You’ll find those listed in order of nutritional value in the article on the best healthy sweeteners. Dates top the list and surprisingly (to me anyway) they are also tops for baking.

As we move into a new year, it’s important to think about how our daily choices affect the world around us. According to climate scientists, one of the best and easiest ways we can help the world (not to mention ourselves and the animals) is by eliminating or cutting back on animal products, especially beef, lamb and dairy products — as you will see in the Shrink Your Footprint article.

And finally, a tasty way to lose weight without the creepy side effects of prescription drugs. Just add a half teaspoon of cumin to your meals! See the last article.

WulfWorks News

I thought I’d share the collaborative vision board we made for the world yesterday in our New Moon—New Year Circle.

This is a good time to make your own vision board, either for your own life or for the world — easy and free on Canva.com — to set your intentions for the year ahead. What do you want to experience in the New Year?

Wouldn’t it be fun to participate in events like this, where we support each other in uplifting our lives and the world around us every New Moon and Full Moon? Join us here: https://www.celticmysteryschool.com/membership/ — you’ll even get a free copy of my new Ebook Dancing with the Moon.

I’m also planning a special bonus Faery Workshop for Imbolc on February 1st. Just giving you a heads up now, since you probably won’t get my February newsletter in time to sign up. Keep an eye on your inbox — the faeries are calling!

Have questions or comments? —>>> Email Bernadette <<<— Please use this link and do not hit reply to this post or I may never get your message.

To your health and happiness!

Bernadette Wulf

WulfWorks.com — HealItAll.com — Eat Plants for Life

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Fun fact: This newsletter has shared over 200 issues since 2006 with nearly 1,000 health tips! 

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Best Healthy Sweeteners

This article inspired me to experiment with date paste. I know dates are great for sweetening things, but it didn’t occur to me to use date paste in baking. I love cooking experiments — especially when they taste good!

Not sure why they didn’t include honey. Maybe it’s strictly vegan. I would have been interested to see where it falls on their list.

This is a very abbreviated list. Check out the article for lots of suggestions for how to use each of these sweeteners and more.

From ForksOverKnives.com:

1. Date Paste
   • Nutrition Score: A
   • Cooking/Baking Score: A
2. Applesauce
   • Nutrition Score: A
   • Cooking/Baking Score: A
3. Bananas
   • Nutrition Score: A
   • Cooking/Baking Score: A
4. Date Sugar [pure ground dates]
   • Nutrition Score: A
   • Cooking/Baking Score: A-
   • Why the minus? One reason is the fiber in date sugar, which can alter the texture of baked goods by absorbing more liquid. [I love using date sugar — why not just add a bit more liquid? — ed.]
5. Pureed Prunes (Dried Plums)
   • Nutrition Score: A
   • Cooking/Baking Score B+
   • Prune puree is a little less versatile than date paste because of its deep brown color and tangy, fruit-forward flavor notes. It’s also less sweet.
6. Pure Maple Syrup
   • Nutrition score: C
   • Baking/Cooking Score: A-
7. 100% Fruit Juice
   • Nutrition Score: B
   • Cooking/Baking Score: B
8. Coconut Sugar/Palm Sugar
   • Nutrition Score: C-
   • Baking/Cooking Score: B
   • Think of these as recipe boosters to be added when a cake needs a fine crumb and a little extra sweetness.
9. Maple Sugar
   • Nutrition Score: C-
   • Baking/Cooking Score B-
10. Pure/Raw/Unrefined Cane Sugar
    • Nutrition Rating: D
    • Baking/Cooking Score B

Get lots more details about healthy sweets here — https://www.forksoverknives.com/how-tos/healthy-natural-sweeteners-ranked-best-uses/

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Shrink Your Footprint with Diet

I get it. A lot of people like eating meat. Meat is associated with feasts and wealth and many traditional meals. Same with dairy products. Humans have developed a taste for them — BUT what if that taste now endangers all life on our planet?

Many scientists are sounding the alarm and pointing out how destructive these industries are to the environment. In addition to the greenhouse gasses produced, we have to include the massive deforestation, antibiotic-resistant bugs, fecal contamination, ocean dead zones, potential pandemics, as well as excessive water use.

I have to ask, is it really worth it just for the sake of taste and tradition?

Here’s what NutritionFacts.org recently posted:

So, yes, according to the prestigious EAT-Lancet Commission, more plant-based may be better, but even “a shift towards a dietary pattern emphasizing whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes without necessarily becoming a strict vegan, will be beneficial.” In Europe, for example, researchers found that just “halving the consumption of meat, dairy products, and eggs in the European Union would achieve a 40% reduction in nitrogen emissions, 25–40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and 23% per capita less use of cropland for food production. In addition, the dietary changes would also lower health risks,” reducing cardiovascular mortality, which is Europe’s leading cause of death.

The way I see it, that’s a triple win! Better for you. Better for the planet. And better for the animals!

If you really think you “need” animal products, at least do what your ancestors did. Save meat for special occasions, or add very small amounts as flavoring like the Chinese have traditionally done.

And don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of protein if you stick to whole foods and include some legumes regularly.

Water Use

I’m sure you have been hearing about droughts around the world over the past several years — a natural phenomenon that seems to be exaggerated by deforestation and greenhouse gasses.

We’ve been told to cut back on showers and let our lawns turn brown, but how often have you heard about the millions of gallons of water wasted on the meat and dairy industries?

From NutritionFacts.org:

In California, including more animal products in your diet requires an additional 10,000 quarts/liters of water each week. So, that’s like taking 150 more showers in seven days. As you can see below and at 4:00 in my video, skipping meat just on weekdays could conserve thousands of gallons of water a week, compared to eating meat every day, as well as cut your daily carbon footprint and total ecological footprint by about 40 percent. 

These are all things to think about when we decide to shrink our environmental footprint. Eliminating meat and dairy from our diets is one of the easiest and most effective steps we can take toward environmental stewardship — and a viable planet for our children and grandchildren.

Read more about shrinking your footprint — https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/how-heavy-is-your-foods-carbon-footprint/

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Sodas & Liver Disease

From NaturalHealth365:

It’s estimated that one in four adults suffers from nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition where excess fat accumulates in the liver without alcohol being a factor. While alcohol is a well-known culprit of liver disease, a recent study published in the Annals of Hepatology highlights another surprising contributor: soft drinks.

I don’t know why this is a “surprising contributor” when it is well known that sugar is a big factor in fatty liver disease, as is excess fat (both dietary and from your own body). And don’t imagine that choosing “diet sodas” will save your liver. Not only do diet sodas contribute to weight gain, their artificial sweetener chemicals put a heavy burden on your liver.

Enough said. If you want something bubbly and sweet, try mixing carbonated water with your favorite fruit juices.

Read more about how sodas damage your liver — https://www.naturalhealth365.com/slash-your-risk-of-nafld-by-breaking-this-harmful-habit.html

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Cumin & Saffron for Weight Loss

In our land of increasing obesity, it seems like weight-loss tips are a dime a dozen, but here’s one that has scientific backing.

From NutritionFacts.org:

Used in cuisines around the world from Tex-Mex to South Asia, cumin is the second most popular spice on earth, after black pepper. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants with a range of purported medicinal uses, but only recently has it been put to the test for weight loss. Those randomized to a half teaspoon at both lunch and dinner over three months lost about four more pounds and an extra inch off their waist. The spice was found comparable to the obesity drug known as orlistat [with it’s very unpleasant side effects! — ed.].

Here’s the video link — https://nutritionfacts.org/video/friday-favorites-benefits-of-cumin-and-saffron-for-weight-loss/

Prefer to read the transcript, like I do? Here you go https://nutritionfacts.org/video/friday-favorites-benefits-of-cumin-and-saffron-for-weight-loss/