(Cashew) Cream of the Crop

Hey babes,

If there has been a forbidden fruit in my health journey, it is absolutely, with one-hundred percent certainty heavy cream. Even before I gave up dairy, I would recoil as if from a snake when I’d see it pop up in ingredient lists. Tikka masala? Nope. Alfredo sauce? Not today. Thick, creamy soups. Sorry, babe. Oh sure, I could find low calorie alternatives, or save them for a special occasion, but the former is somewhat lacking, and the latter has the nasty habit of damaging your health. Not to mention the gross separation in the dishes as they chill.

What omnivores don’t know is that vegans and plant-based eaters have been guarding the world’s greatest alternative that solves this problem: the one, the only CASHEW CREAM.

But…babe, you may be thinking, aren’t nuts like, super high in calories too?

Well, yes, but also, not nearly as much. Let’s break down the numbers:

	Cashew Cream (per ¼ cup)	Heavy Cream (per ¼ cup)
Calories	90	205
Carbs (g)	4.9	1.7
Fat (g)	7.1	22
Saturated Fat (g)	1.3	13.7
Cholesterol (mg)	0	81
Protein (g)	3.0	1.2

Okay, wow, I’d never actually ever broken down the numbers before and I feel even more justified. So, assuming that the recipe I’m going to show you comes out to roughly three cups, a ¼ cup serving comes out to the above. Compared to most foods I eat on a whole food plant-based diet, that’s still pretty calorie dense. BUT, when you compare it to its dairy equivalent, it still comes in smelling like roses. Just seeing the fat content in the dairy version make me screech out loud.

As important though is the quality of those calorie sources. I have been the girl that only cared about the calorie-count in foods, but I am an older, wiser babe now. One who can’t even look at an egg without my cholesterol rising. Really, I should be smashing Brazil nuts as I research this to prevent the rise all this dairy talk is inevitably causing. That aside, there are decades of research that show the profound effects different foods have on the human body. You can certainly restrict your calories enough on any foods to maintain your weight, but as I can personally attest, you may end up with a  whole slew of unforeseen health effects, doubly so if you have a genetic predisposition for them.

So why cashews?

From a culinary perspective, cashews have a mild, creamy taste that mimics that of dairy products very well, and when soaked or boiled, they are easily blended to the appropriate texture. Having made faux dairy products from cashews, sunflower seeds, almonds, oats, tofu, and others, I can safely say that cashews have consistently proven the best mimic, particularly for creamy sauces.

Additionally, cashews have a lower fat content than most other nuts, which keeps them from spoiling as quickly. I’m not necessarily promoting this as a universal truth, but I have keep this recipe in my fridge for up to a month before without it turning or molding (in a nice, clean jar).

Getting into the research surrounding cashews, there are even more excellent reasons to consider making them the cream of the crop (I’ll see myself out). Right out of the gate, it should be mentioned that nut consumption has been shown to help with weight control, in spite of their caloric density. Pretty sure dairy has quite a different effect. They are also a decent source of antioxidants. Most incredibly, “in two large, independent cohorts of nurses and other health professionals, the frequency of nut consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality, independently of other predictors of death.”

Amazing, right? I would go into a long lengthy process here, but it couldn’t be simpler. Soak the cashews overnight (or half an hour in extremely hot water), drain the cashews, blend with fresh water. Use. Super easy, it’s practically failure-proof. Keep an eye out for all the beautiful recipes in which you can use this staple, and let me know how you like to use it!