Healthy Food Review: Sweets from the Earth Cashew Cookies

I've been loving the Sweets from the Earth treats lately.

They have a great selection of cakes, cookies, brownies and other sweets, that are not only free of refined sugar, but are dairy and egg-free as well. Many products are also gluten-free and use GMO-free plant-derived ingredients. The founder, Ilana, became vegetarian at a young age, and eventually vegan and studied to become a pastry chef.

Her lifestyle and training is evident in her products, which are not only healthy and use quality ingredients, but bonus is that they actually taste really really good!

These are desserts that I actually feel comfortable bringing with me when I visit friends' homes whose priority is taste over healthy ingredients. I show them the atypical ingredient list only after they have finished enjoying the dessert. Gotta love the reaction when they realize they just ate a dessert made with tofu and a few simple plant-based ingredients.

I picked up some Sweets from the Earth flourless cashew cookies from Sobey's...kudos to Sobey's for finally catching up to stock health foods sometime in 2009. They were behind Loblaws for quite a while, but now have a great selection of gluten and dairy-free options that were previously found mainly in health food stores.

The Flourless Cashew Cookies were absolutely fantastic. Full of cashew flavour (using cashew butter as the main ingredient, rather than a flour), with adequate sweetness, and good texture. Only critique would be that they are quite crumbly, so make sure to scarf it down over a plate or napkin.

Ingredient list is exactly what I like to see - just a few whole ingredients:

Cashew butter (dry-roasted cashews, safflower oil), organic evaporated cane juice, organic tofu, baking soda, sea salt...and that's it! Love it.

I'd also highly recommend the dairy-free chocolate cheesecake, wild blueberry cheesecake and carrot cake. Sweets from the Earth treats are definitely decadent enough for any sweet tooth, health-conscious or not.

Rating (out of 10):

Taste: 8

Texture: 7

Ingredient List: 9