Healthy Gummies! No Processed Sugar Needed

So the holidays happened!… and if you are anything like, well, basically ALL of America, your days were sprinkled with sugary treats and processed everything.

Our immediate family eats mostly whole foods on a day to day basis, but when we get together with extended family there is a bounty of processed sweets and foods to choose from. I usually make my favorite “date sweetened brownies” or I make myself a big bowl of Greek yogurt with almond butter and I’m completely satisfied. My children however are highly tempted by the sugar fairy and obviously enjoy grandma’s cookies in abundance. What child could resist right?

I love that we are making memories and that we can relax about our food choices on special occasions, but it all adds up. After days of higher than usual sugar intake and many late nights up with family and friends, of course there are bound to be changes in attitudes and moods. So the hubs and I talked, and we decided that we were all in need of a sugar detox. Since I don’t eat processed sugar, but indulged quite a bit in dairy, I decided to join the fast by nixing all dairy from my diet… yes, even my beloved Greek yogurt with homemade almond butter.

Well, when one tells their children they are going to cut out processed sugar completely, they must have fun food backups at the ready, or there just might be a mutiny. So we made lots of treats for the kids that we could feel good about them eating.

Here are just a few of our favorite treats that don’t have processed sugar added:

• Date sweetened brownies (I had some left over after Christmas that I saved just for the kids to take to events where there might be other sweets)
• This fantastic “cookie dough fudge“. I made them without the chocolate chips and they are super good! Of course I had to save them for everyone else since the butter makes them a “no-no” for my dairy fast.
• Dried fruit
• Larabars (I get them cheapest at Thrive Market)
• And of course these fruit gummies I’m about to show you how to make.

These gummies couldn’t be much simpler to make. You can pick any fruit you like for any number of fun combinations of flavors and colors.

I even used my avocado pudding to make one batch and the kiddos loved them!

Some of our favorite fruit combos are: strawberry/mango and strawberry banana

You could also use a combo of fruit juice and fruit puree but I like the fiber that comes in whole fruit puree rather than all the sugar of juice.

Ingredients Needed:

• 1 1/2 cups of purred fruit
• 4 TBS beef gelatin (I found this the cheapest at Thrive Market but they also sell it on amazon)
• optional: 1 TBS lemon juice (helps them to last longer but you can always just stick them in the freezer if you are going to take longer than a week to eat them)
• optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract (no sugar added)
• super optional: sweetener of choice. If your kiddos are used to super sweet sweets you might want to add a little raw honey, or liquid stevia. My kiddos enjoyed the gummies without any sweetener

Directions:

1. Blend fruit (along with lemon juice if using) in a food processor or blender until smooth.
2. Place 1 1/2 cups of blended fruit in a sauce pan.
3. Sprinkle 4 TBS beef gelatin over the fruit and let it sit and “bloom” for a few minutes.
4. Stir in the gelatin and cook the mixture on medium heat until it’s warm. Don’t allow it to boil. Make sure you mix the gelatin in really well so that it’s not grainy and you don’t have any chunks of gelatin powder anywhere in the mix.
5. Take your mixture off the burner and add 1 tsp of vanilla extract and stir in.
6. If adding optional liquid stevia or raw honey do so now (add a little at a time until you get desired sweetness).
7. Pour into silicon molds of choice.
8. Allow to gel in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

We like to mix up the molds we use. I have used heart shaped molds, Star Wars molds, or just a silicon bread pan and then I used cookie cutters to cut fun shapes like bears or stars.

Store in the fridge in an air tight container if you plan on eating them all in the next week. Otherwise you can put them in a freezer bag in the freezer and they last much longer. My kiddos usually eat them up in days so I don’t have to freeze them unless I make a double batch (which I highly recommend if your kids like them as much as mine do).

These gummies are a great healthy treat that are super fun for kids (and those who are kids at heart).

Feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section below.

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