Caramel Apple Cheesecake

TESTIMONY OF THE DAY

Phone Client Update!

“Hi Maria! I here is my report after 1 week…

1. Overall, I am feeling much, much better health wise. On days when I “stick to plan”, take all my supplements, and get my 8 hours sleep I feel FANTASTIC….almost like I’m on an energy high!!

2. I’ve lost 10 pounds already and I have not even been “perfect” or exercising as much as I normally do during triathlon season (just training for the 10 miler).

3. I’m learning so much, I never, ever, knew from all your stuff, I’m still trying to read it all, print it all, and digest it all in bits and pieces….just because my stepson and job do not allow for large blocks of time!! I’ve also done research out on a lot of what you have provided/said and you are dead right about everything it is amazing. I just wish I could digest it all quicker, but I know it will be an ongoing learning process………

4. I was a PASTA AND BREAD fanatic…..I bet I ate those things one way or another 80% of the time!!! I have cut all of that out and mostly I don’t even want it……I thought I would be drooling in every direction at all of it…..but I’m not….I look at it and my body almost says…..”do it and you will feel crappy”!!!! It is weird!!! Now I almost CRAVE GOOD foods!!! I hope this lasts……(the supplements help so much!)

5. I told Kari earlier this week, this is one of the best things I have ever, ever done in my life!!! (along with finding triathlon, etc……I feel like this was a missing component).

If you want to get started on your “after” photo, click HERE. 

The 30 day meal plans will help you take the planning out of how to get the perfect keto ratios in your meals.

Treats that are dairy free will also be included!

HERBS vs FRUITS

A lot of American’s are ingrained with the idea that they should be eating an apple a day so they pick a big red Golden Delicious feeling like they are doing a “body good.”

Not necessarily; many times we focus on taste, or should I say sugar content, to stimulate sales. In the book, Eating on the Wild Side, Jo Robinson’s reviews a 2009 study that refers to 46 overweight men with high cholesterol and triglycerides who agreed to participate in an eating experiment. Half of the men stayed on their regular diets, serving as a control group. The other 23 added an apple to their fare. The goal was to determine if eating an apple a day would reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. At the end of the study, the men who ate the apple a day had higher levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol than before the study began. The conclusion is that the apples used were too low in phytonutrients to lower the men’s bad cholesterol, and too high in sugar causing an increase in their triglycerides.

For example, most animals have learned how to become fat and how to become thin. They do it in a tightly regulated way… Hibernating mammals will double their weight and fat in the fall in preparation for winter… I realized that I can learn by reading the studies about these animals. As I read them, I had another insight, which had not been appreciated before; these animals develop all the features of metabolic syndrome that we do. They get fat. Their visceral fat goes up. They get fatty liver. The triglycerides go up in their blood. They get insulin-resistant… It’s a normal process.

Millions of years ago, our ancestors consumed fructose from natural fruits rather than the massive doses of high fructose corn syrup like we do today, but they still experienced this fat-gaining phenomenon. During the summer, they would consume large amounts of fruit and would put on weight in order to survive the famine during the colder months when fruits were unavailable. This led to a genetic mutation that resulted in a greater uric acid response to fructose. The more sugar we eat, the more uric acid our bodies produce, which increases our liver and intestines’ ability to absorb sugar, which is a bad thing! Obese people absorb fructose effortlessly, where skinny people don’t absorb it as well.

It is a detrimental snowball effect for my obese clients; the more sugar they eat, the more uric acid you make; which leads to the sensitivity to fructose absorption. Once you head down that path, it is almost impossible to stop. This is why I have to get so extreme with clients and cut out fruit too. If you start soon enough and cut out all foods that are creating the fat-creating snowball, you can recover, but if you don’t, you will lose the fat-burning, energy-producing mitochondria and you can’t restore them. At this point, you reset your fat cells at higher set point and our bodies want to stay at that set point for homeostasis.

You can try and try to lose weight, but our fat cells have memory. They are cozy in your body and think they are protecting you. This causes the hormone leptin to be mis-firing too. Leptin and ghrelin are very important hormones that work like a “checks and balances” that manage hunger and fullness. Ghrelin, produced in the stomach, increases appetite, while leptin, produced in fat cells, sends a message to our brain when we are full. This imbalance causes us to intensely crave food and never feel full. The worst part is that we don’t crave broccoli, we crave high calorie sweets and starchy foods. Over time, this imbalance can easily lead to long-term weight gain. Since insulin, ghrelin and leptin, function as significant indicators to the central nervous system in the long-term regulation of energy balance, decreases of circulating insulin and leptin and increased ghrelin concentrations, studies prove that it leads to increased caloric intake and eventually contribute to increased fat cells during high consumption of fructose.

HEALTH TIP: A damaged liver causes low moods and can lead to serious depression. Are you depressed? Get your liver checked and eliminate all foods that bog down your liver.

NO FRUIT? How will I get nutrients? When I am asked if I eat fruits, I jokingly say of course! I eat avocado, olives and tomatoes! But most people think I am a bit extreme when I limit most vegetable consumption for my clients too. To get keto adapted, even some low-starch vegetables may keep someone with a damaged metabolism out of ketosis. Which is why my Accelerated 30 day meal plans are so detailed with what low-starch vegetables are allowed to get into ketosis fast.

We need to update the recommendation of eating 9 servings of fruits and vegetables for maximum health. This suggestion has a few issues with it. A few years ago, I read that most kids actually do get the recommended servings for fruits and vegetables. Are you shocked to read this? Yep, they eat French fries, onion rings and ketchup. Sad, but it does fit the guidelines. Will you reap the benefits of eating 7-9 servings of these foods? Absolutely not.

So even if you aren’t even eating French fries or ketchup, eating 3 bananas a day isn’t a good idea. Studies prove that the current state of the produce we consume is relatively low in phytonutrients, and much higher in sugar than it was in our Paleo days. All of the fruits and vegetables displayed in our supermarkets have much less nutrients than what you would find in the wild. Consumers want fruit that tastes sweet. This is why we now have “Cotton Candy Grapes!” Traditional grapes weren’t sweet enough, so we modified them to satisfy our kid’s desire for sweets in order for them to eat fruit. The sad part is, we think it is a good thing when our kids eat massive amounts of fruits. The more palatable our produce has become, the less beneficial they are for our health. The most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste.

Sure many high sugar fruits have healthy antioxidants such as Vitamin A, C and E. Antioxidants protect cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food BUT you produce little to no free radicals if you stay in a keto-adapted state. And what is interesting is an orange that is high in vitamin C also has a lot of sugar. Glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another when entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn’t take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%. So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl. Instead try parsley or bell peppers!

Fresh herbs like parsley, rosemary, oregano and basil are the most nutritious plants you can consume. For example, everyone things spinach is the perfect food, but fresh oregano has eight times the amount of antioxidants! Sure, we don’t eat a cup of oregano like we would spinach, but it does go to show that a little bit provides a huge benefit. Instead of consuming fruits and starchy veggies that have fructose and raise blood sugar quickly, I suggest using herbs, vanilla beans and spices more often in your cooking preparations.

If browning butter seems daunting, check out just how easy this flavor bomb is to make!

OPTIONAL: I made this without the crust and it was still awesome! If you do not have cocoa butter, skip the crust!

Caramel Apple Cheesecake

Maria Emmerich

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 12 minutes mins

Cook Time 55 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 7 minutes mins

Servings 12

Calories

Ingredients

  

0.25x0.5x1x2x3x

• ▢ CRUST:
• ▢ 1 ½ cups almond flour or pecan meal
• ▢ ⅓ cup Natural Sweetener
• ▢ ¼ cup butter melted
• ▢ FILLING:
• ▢ 5 8 ounce packages cream cheese
• ▢ 1 1/2 cups Natural Sweetener or powdered erythritol*
• ▢ 1 tsp stevia glycerite
• ▢ 3/4 cup vanilla almond milk
• ▢ 3 eggs
• ▢ 2 tsp apple extract
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon Redmond Real salt
• ▢ CARAMEL Apple SAUCE:
• ▢ 1/2 cup Natural Sweetener
• ▢ 1/2 cup salted butter
• ▢ 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• ▢ 1 tsp apple extract

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. Set aside.
• CRUST: Place all the ingredients into a medium bowl and combine well with a hand mixer until the mixture resembles sand. Press onto bottom of prepared pan. Place in the oven to bake for 8 minutes or until starting to turn golden brown. Remove from oven.
• FILLING: In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with natural sweeteners until smooth. Blend in almond milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in extract and salt; combine until smooth. Pour ½ the batter into greased spring-form pan. Reserve the rest.
• CARAMEL SAUCE: Before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go – the cream and the butter next to the pan, ready to put in. Heat butter on high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. As soon as it comes to a boil, watch for specks of brown (this is brown butter….SO GOOD on veggies!). Immediately add the sweetener and the cream to the pan. Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass mason jar and let sit to cool to room temperature. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
• Spoon ½ the caramel sauce into the ½ way full cheesecake batter. Cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect.
• Then top with the rest of the cheesecake batter and the caramel sauce. Cut through batter again several times for a marble effect.
• Bake 55 minutes or until center is almost set (a water bath helps to cook the cheesecake evenly). If you are not using a water bath, I suggest placing a lined baking sheet under the cheesecake to catch any overflow or leaking. If you don’t use a water bath, when done baking, turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking.
• Cool completely.
• Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Makes 12 servings. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

Notes

Nutritional Information:
569 calories, 54g fat, 12g protein, 7g carbs, 1.5g fiber
P:E Ratio 0.2

Are you concerned about the price of almond flour (not to mention the carbs in nuts)? No worries!

The Ketogenic Cookbook is almond-flour free! Find your copy HERE!

Thank you for your love and support!