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Fake food fix: brown rice crispy treats
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Photo: Karl Baron
My daughters love these treats but I cringe at the thought of feeding them the original recipe. Here’s a fake food fix blast from the past.
Rice Krispie Treats—original recipe
3 T butter or margarine
10.5-oz package of Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispie cereal
Fake ingredients in this recipe include:
Marshmallows: tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial flavor, and artificial color (blue #1). Artificial additives have been linked to hyperactivity and allergies in children. If you can’t pronounce it or if it says ‘artificial’, it’s not real food.
Rice Krispie cereal: high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that has been linked to obesity. A recent study also found that mercury is a common contaminant in high fructose corn syrup, with almost half of all samples tested containing detectable levels of the heavy metal.
Brown Rice Crispy Treats—the real food way
The Real Food version of these childhood favorites uses whole grain organic brown rice, natural marshmallows, and real butter. What could be better than that?
3 T organic butter
10-oz all natural mini marshmallows
6 cups Crispy Brown Rice Cereal
Optional: 1/3 cup sliced almonds; 1/3 cup dried cranberries or other dried fruit; 1/3 cup peanut or other nut butter
Melt the butter in a large pan over low heat.
Add the marshmallows and stir until melted. If using nut butter, add now.
Remove from heat and using a buttered spatula, mix the cereal to coat with marshmallow mixture. If using nuts or dried fruit, add now and mix well.
Press into a buttered 9x13” pan and cool.
Real Food Doc Notes:
Eating well doesn’t have to mean depriving yourself. While you wouldn’t want to snack on these treats every day (the marshmallows do still have sugar and the butter contributes its share of saturated fat), it’s nice to have a healthier alternative to this favorite comfort food.
The whole grain rice cereal used in this recipe provides a little fiber, and using organic butter ensures that you won’t be burdening yourself and your children with many of the fat-soluble toxins (pesticides and artificial growth hormones) found in conventionally produced dairy products. With the addition of nut butter and dried fruits, this snack is almost elevated to the status of 'health food'.
Each week, Dr. Beauchamp (a.k.a. the Real Food Doc) will give you or your children's favorite not-so-healthy foods a Fake Food Fix. Email me at kimberly@kimberlybeauchamp.com with your suggestions!
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