Some Diet Friendly Desserts that Taste Good

I've lost and successfully kept off 100 pounds and I have a husband who needs to watch his sugar intake, even though he has a raging sweet-tooth. So, in our household responsible sweet intake is a necessity. The biggest thing that will help you know whether your choice is diet friendly or not is to read the label.

This is an article about the desserts that I've eaten and like. Some of them do have other calorie options and flavors. But for the most part, I'm not really enamored with artificial sweeteners, so the only items that're artificially sweetened among my recommendations are the diet sodas and some of the ice creams. I've found that among most of these choices, a decent dessert can be had for around 150 calories per serving. Which doesn't kill the diet. My recommendations are:

Cake:

Betty Crocker;

Warm Delight Minis in Molten Chocolate are 150 calories per serving and has a rich chocolate flavor and nice texture. They're easy to prepare in the microwave.

Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake, box mix, is easy to prepare and at 140 calories per 12th of the cake it's worth it. We use this with a serving of sliced strawberries and Reddi Whip for a delicious strawberry shortcake, or 2 tablespoons of Hershey's 50% Chocolate syrup with the Reddi Whip on the cake. Yum!

Bakery Angel food loaf is 190 calories for 1/5 of the loaf. This is noticeably sweeter than the mix.

Ice-cream: All servings are 1/2 cup.

Breyer's ice cream is the only one that has a decent vanilla in their diet lines. Carb Smart and Double Churned are 90 calories. Smooth and Dreamy ranges from 110-140 calories. Even their All Naturals are reasonable at 130-160 calories and have some wonder flavors. We prefer the Chocolate Chocolate Chip and the Cherry Vanilla. Double Yum! Any of their vanillas combined with diet root-beer, make a really good and satisfying
root-beer float. We've used both A&W and Mug Root-beers.

Edy's ice-cream's Slow Churned has a wide choice of flavors with a calorie range from 100-130. Their Rocky Road and Fudge Brownie are good. We don't like their vanilla.

Blue Bunny has several versions, such as low fat, fat free and low carb. Their calorie allotments are from 110-150. Their low fat and low carb taste good and have some nice selections, such as Chocolate Fudge. We don't like any of their vanilla based selections in the diet range.

Frozen Novelties:

Popsicle; These are good choices if you need to eat light on the dessert.

Fudgsicle is 60 calories per pop and is nice and fudgy.

Jello pudding pops are frozen pudding on a stick and are 90 calories per pop.

Popsicle Natural is frozen juice on a stick and comes in at 45 calories per pop.

Diet Soda: The listed pops don't have that yucky sweetener taste.

A&W and Mug root-beer make a great root-beer float.

Sprite Zero is nice if you're somewhere and you need to drink a soda.

Pudding:

On the shelf;

Hunt's Snack Pack is 100-130 per cup and comes in four flavors. Our favorite is the Butterscotch.

Boxed Jello Pudding; We like the Cook and Serve, which is 140-160 calories per 1/2 cup serving. It comes in chocolate, vanilla, rice and butterscotch. We like all but the rice, since we haven't tried it.

Cold Puddings;

Swiss Miss is just wonderful and is 140-150 calories per cup.Their chocolate choices, especially the fudge ones are really good.

Jello is also good with calories from 110-130 per cup.

Cozy Shack has really nice rice and tapioca puddings which have calorie counts from 100-130 per cup.

Add Ons:

Hershey's 50% chocolate syrup is 45 calories for a two tablespoon serving. It just has less sugar than the regular and tastes really good on ice-cream. The regular syrup is 100 calories, and even though the sugar-free has a much lower calorie count than either of the other choices, I highly do not recommend it, unless you
have no other choice.

Reddi Whip Original is 15 calories for two tablespoons and the Extra Creamy is 20 calories for the same amount.

Candy:This is included in case you really need a chocolate jolt or are eating a bit more calorie-light as a dessert replacement. I don't have any fruit or other flavor recommendations since after reading the labels of some of my favorites, I realized that I was eating the equivalent of a spoonful of flavored sugar with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. All choices come in 12oz bags

Hershey's Bliss is 115 calories for three pieces of any of their choices except for our favorite, the Meltaway, which is 110 calories for three pieces.

Hershey's Minis are 84 calories for two of the regular minis or 105 calories for three of the Special Dark or 100 calories for four of the Cookies and Chocolate.

Hershey's kisses range from 100-118 calories for five pieces. I just love their mint, which was on the shelves last Christmas.

Dove ranges from 84-88 calories for two pieces. We like both the milk and dark chocolates.

Reese's Mini cups are 88 calories for two pieces.

York Minis are 100 calories for two pieces.

M&Ms are 110 calories for 1/8 cup of the peanut version or 105 calories for the plain ones.

Snack sizes; I included these to give you a bit a of sticker shock and to put the other choices in perspective. So think hard before you decide to put one of these in you mouth:

Almond Joy-One piece is 80 calories.

Snickers-One piece is 80 calories.

Hersey's Chocolate-One piece is 67 calories.

Homemade Desserts: The nice thing about these versions is that you can have a really satisfying dessert since it can also be a part of the meal.

The strawberry shortcake and root-beer floats were already mentioned.

1/2 cup vanilla ice-cream + one serving of crushed pineapple(juice packed)with one
serving of 50% Hershey's chocolate syrup. Really yum! Or use another fruit of your
choice.

1/2 cup Jello Cook and Serve vanilla pudding + 1/2 banana or other fruit and one
serving of Reddi Whip or use another fruit of your choice.

Homemade peach cobbler: Pour (2) 15 oz cans Del Monte Lite Freestone Peach slices into an 8x8 or similar baking pan. Mix in 1 teaspoon cornstarch and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Cover with 8 frozen biscuits and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until the biscuits are brown and the sauce bubbles.

This is a dessert and part of the meal in one, since the peaches are a fruit serving and the biscuits are a starch serving. The peaches are 60 calories per 1/2 cup. The biscuits can be 140-160 calories apiece depending upon the brand. This serves 8. Yum! You can also use other fruits instead of the peaches.

Other suggestions for cutting dessert calories:

These suggestions may not be within the 150 or so calorie count. But there are
those special occasions during the year and those 'don't want to miss' desserts.
These suggestions help to minimize the calorie overload:

Pies; The best pies to use are the homemade ones since you can control the amount of sugar that goes into them. Just cut the sugar down a little and don't eat the crust. The best choices are pumpkin, yam, cheese(replace ricotta for the cream cheese), custard and any fruit pies.The nice thing is that most of these can be included as a part of you regular portion allotment of fruit, dairy/meat or vegetable.

Birthday cake; Just eat 1/2 of what you would normally eat.