Anti cancer brownies

I had the best of intentions when I whipped up a batch of anti-cancer brownies for my dinner guests yesterday.

I believed the recipe when it told me brown rice syrup was a healthier alternative to sugar, and that cocoa was healthy, but that that consuming milk or dairy products such as ice cream together with cocoa may inhibit the absorption of flavonoids from cocoa.
I even complimented Festival Foods on its excellent variety of healthy alternatives to sugar when I shopped there ahead of my baking afternoon.

Brown rice syrup, I said to myself as I drove home from the grocery store triumphantly, who knew? I thought about all the ways I could use it to make all my recipes so much healthier.

But, I live with a co-blogger who debunks my research on a regular basis and she had a few things to say as I arrived home and began to assemble my treat.

“You know, it all gets broken down as sugar anyway,” she said as she read the label. “This has 22 grams of sugar per serving. How is that healthier?”

“But it’s brown rice,” I said sort of weakly as I considered the fact that she may have, once again, been absolutely right. “It has nutrients sugar doesn’t.”

Nope.

I had some time to do a little more research as my super healthy brownies baked.

Turns out the extra nutrients in the brown rice are basically cooked out during the sugar making process. The brownies, chock full of dark chocolate cocoa (another item my co-blogger rolled her eyes at months ago when I first bought it. ‘Cocoa is cocoa, mom. You just paid extra for the words “dark chocolate”‘), smelled delicious.

But they looked ridiculous, dark, crumbly and really dry.

I served them, and we all chewed politely for a while.

“These would be delicious,” I said. “With a big bowl of ice cream.”