Pancake Perfection!

Again, I'm featuring a breakfast food because, well, it's my favorite meal of the day AND I also wanted to show you that there are tons of different ways to eat a healthy breakfast.  Today I'm talking about pancakes.  I typically hate pancakes.  The pancakes I remember eating at restaurants as a kid were doughy, sugary, artificial tasting and covered in syrup that also tasted artificial.  Sound familiar to anyone?  Not tasty and CERTAINLY not healthy.  

In this post I offer you a quick, inexpensive and healthy alternative to the infamous pancake.  First, the dough.  I'm posting two pics of the pancake mix I used, one of the package and one of the ingredients.  We'll go over both.

I like Nature's Path Multigrain because they do the best they can at using the best ingredients.  It is not only ORGANIC but also NON-GMO certified, which these days is very important.

So the ingredients...Overall, I'd rate them about a B on the A to F scale.  I love that they use whole wheat flour but am not too thrilled about the cane juice, whey powder or monocalcium phosphate (which is added calcium and phosphorus for leavening).  The sodium bicarbonate is just baking soda. So besides making the batter yourself-with whole wheat flour, this is the next best option in my book!

So the instructions are simple: 

Again, I stole this picture because my son ate the pancakes I made before I could snap a pic. I'll do better next time! Thanks cheekykitchen.com!

Ingredients

Pancake mix
Canola oil
Ripe banana
Slivered almonds (raw, unsalted)
Carob chips (or chocolate chips if you want, I just went with a vegan option)
Shredded coconut (unsweetened)
Vanilla extract

Options: any other random fruits or items you like to eat. peanut butter might be good in there as well!

Directions:

Follow instructions to make the basic batter. I believe it's 1/2 cup of dry mix to 1 3/4 cup of cold water plus 2 tbsp canola oil-but I may be wrong so just check.  It's super easy and I usually double it for my batches.

To the bowl with the batter, add all the rest of the stuff.  Stir it until mixed well and banana is all mushed up in there.

Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray or use butter or whatever you like to grease it up.  Use a spoon to dollup the mix in there and DON'T TOUCH THEM until the sides are bubbley.  Then it's ok to flip.  The other side cooks quick so have a plate ready.  I would regrease pan before next batch.

Once they're done I just serve them up as is. No frills, no anything needed.  Fresh berries would be a great side or maybe some added coconut, but really they can stand alone.  That is why I love them!

Much Ado About Coconut Oil

As many folks struggle with their weight, diet and health, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the vast amounts of food/health information out there. One day an egg is good for you, the next it's bad. And so on and so forth...right? This week the spotlight is on coconut oil-as evidenced by a recent New York Times piece on the product. (Read it by clicking here.) Is it good or bad for us?

Well, after my nutrition work at Whole Foods Market, and with my own personal experience as a fast food junkie turned healthy runner, I can tell you the answer is simple...and complex.

It's simple in that it really boils down to this:

That's the simple way to think about it. Whole versus parts. Do you want to eat a real coconut with all the fiber, phytochemicals, nutrients and minerals it has to offer, OR do you want to eat the oil that has come from a factory where they took the coconut and extracted stuff from it to make the oil? The extracted oil is then left with only a fraction of the nutrition (and I'm being generous here) offered by the real, whole coconut. I mean it comes in a jar folks!

Ok that was the simple. Now to the complex. I'm not saying we should give up on coconut oil altoghether-I find American eaters for the most part tend to think in extremes, all or nothing. That part, is not that simple. Nutritionally-coconut oil does have saturated fat in it, which we know is bad. There are somewhat "healthier" saturated fats that are called mono-or-polyunsaturated fats, but at the end of the day coconut oil still has saturated fat in it (as does an actual coconut but I'll get to that in a minute). And it also has 120 calories ALL from fat per TABLESPOON. So this is where the complex answer comes in.

Is it bad for us? Well sorta. If you are focusing on getting the most bang for each bite you take in, coconut oil will pretty much give you empty calories without fiber (to fill you up) and with potentially fattening effects. AND if you are already getting too many calories each day as it is, without lots of fruits and veggies-this will do you no good. So avoid it AS YOU WOULD ANYTHING WITH EMPTY CALORIES AND SATURATED FAT.

Please don't go bash coconut oil as you eat your cheeseburger-that's just ridiculous. Apply these rules across the board. Catching the drift?

Now-that said. If you read my "Moderation" blog post from earlier this week you know what I'll say next. People who have healthy diets across the board-meaning they eat lots of plants and omit lots of processed foods-would probably use this in a veggie stir fry or to make vegan cupcakes. That is ok and in fact healthy. They are getting a great diet as it is, they are not overdosing on chips and fat and can stand a little fat and/or variation here.

Almost done...so back to simple. If you don't want to worry about all the stuff I just wrote, it is as simple as eating whole, real foods-stuff that is not in a jar, and/or that does not have a label. A coconut. Yes, an actual coconut has saturated fat (as we talked about above), but it also has fiber, nutrients, minerals and other things that will really contribute to a healthy diet. So again, get rid of the extreme here-I'm not saying eat coconuts all day everyday, but if you want one, eat one. A real one.

Plants are easy folks. They are built to nourish us in ways we don't even know possible yet. Eat them whole and often. Keep that simple mentality in your head everytime you see the latest spin on a food and you will be golden. Hope it helps!