Pumpkin Spice Pancakes – Paleo Style

Free at last! In honor of this fabulous day I’d like to share another recipe that I found from the same blog I cited yesterday.

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes – Paleo Style

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp coconut milk
• 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
• Cinnamon to taste
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• Earth Balance

Process:

1. In a medium sized mixing bowl, blend all ingredients with a hand mixer.
2. Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil in a non-stick frying pan on medium heat.
3. Add 1/8-1/4 cup of batter to the frying pan.
4. Cook pancakes for about 2 minutes, or until batter releases easily from the frying pan, flip, and cook for a remaining minute or two.
5. Top with apple butter, or your personal favorite pancake topping, and enjoy.

Ready for work:

Nutrition Facts: (Makes 4 pancakes)

Calories: 403

Fat: 21.3

Protein: 28

Carbs: 24

Fiber: 12

Sugar: 0

I was intrigued by this recipe because I have never used coconut flour before, so I decided to do some research and found that it’s a great low-carb, gluten-free, and high fiber alternative to other flours. As you can see in the nutrition facts, half of the carbs come from fiber and there is absolutely no sugar – unless you add maple syrup or apple butter etc.

Summary: I’m all about trying new things. The key to this recipe is to be open minded. You can’t go into this expecting it to taste like your standard buttermilk pancakes because you will be greatly disappointed – I assure you. I topped mine with some earth balance as I am on a sugar detox and can’t use maple syrup or apple butter. It’s super easy to make and it smells amazing! In terms of taste and texture, I’ll have to say it’s more like a bread than like a pancake because it’s a little thicker and grainier and less fluffy or airy. I bet with some maple syrup in the batter or even topped with apple butter it would taste magnificent.

Some ideas to modify this recipe would be to add some raisins/craisins to the mix, top it with a nut-butter, and add some vanilla extract or more milk (dairy or non-dairy) to make it fluffier. Overall, it’s a great recipe to play with and especially great during sugar detox, low-carb or gluten-free diets! Don’t be afraid to try new things – look up some recipes that call for coconut flour and have fun!

*3 out of 3 so far on my sticker calendar! Tomorrow is my first 5k race day – wish me luck! Happy Friday 🙂

Nutrition Label Deception

Cover of Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Nutrition labels. Most people – including myself – have been led to believe that the most important part of food labels are the nutrition facts (Calories, Fats, Sat. Fats, Carbs, Sugars etc.) While these are important, yes, it is also crucial to check the ingredients and here’s why.

Trans Fats have recently been introduced to us as more detrimental to our health than saturated fat. The USDA finally found it important enough to make manufacturers label  how much trans fat is in each product. Great, right? Wrong. I bet you didn’t know that the USDA allows .5 grams of trans fat, otherwise known as hydrogenated oils, per serving and still allow manufacturers to claim 0 grams on the nutrition facts label. (Or maybe you did know because you’re brilliant!)

Here’s an example of this:

To the left is the Nutrition Facts label for Coffee Mate non-dairy creamer. Next to trans fat there is a nice big 0 g. If you scroll down and look at the ingredients list, you’ll notice that the third – I repeat- third ingredient is partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cotton seed oil aka Trans Fat. So, the reason why they are allowed to claim 0g is because they have .5 g or less per serving. Let’s think about this logically. A serving size is 1 tbs and I’m sure most people use more than a tbs. Each tablespoon has .5 gr or less, so when you calculate how many servings per bottle – it’s false to say there are zero trans fats! Another good example of this is peanut butter (like skippy or jiff.) If the ingredient list has more than peanuts and salt – it’s clearly not natural so, READ INGREDIENTS!!!

According to Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules,” rule number 3: “Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry – Ex: Ethoxylated diglycerides, Cellulose, Xanthan gum.” and rule number 6: “Avoid food products that contain more than 5 ingredients.” This can be very difficult to do, but the point of this is to try and make as much food as possible at home. Most products that have over 5 ingredients have been extremely processed in order to have a longer shelf life – even products that claim “natural” on the box. The bottom line here is – it’s always better to make it yourself than to buy it off a shelf!

My friend Lea shared a delicious recipe – she made up and likes to call accidentally Indian – with me that I will now share with you! It’s in season too 😉

Ingredients:

Sweet Potato

Green Onions

Asparagus

Mushrooms

Steamed Lentils (Trader Joes sells them)

Tofu

Spices: Garlic Powder, Rosemary, Salt, Pepper

Butternut Squash Soup (low sodium)

The Process:

1. Saute a chopped sweet potato with green onions and garlic

2. Chop up a handful of asparagus and mushrooms

3. Add in about a cup of steamed lentils

4. Use tofu marinated in beet juice  http://recipesforjuicing.information2know.com/tofu-     marinated-in-russian-beet-marinade/ (Optional if you’re not a tofu fan)

5. Use garlic powder, rosemary, salt and other spices (maybe tarragon)

6. Make sure you don’t throw in all the ingredients at once. First sear the potatoes with           rosemary, salt, and garlic until they are soft.  The other vegetables take much less time     to soften so you want to put them in afterwards to avoid overcooking.

7. Add some butternut squash soup (low sodium from trader joe’s)

    stir and turn off heat, keep lid on and let simmer for about 10 minutes and SERVE!

Quote:

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Suess

Read- read -read Ingredients 🙂

Related articles:

• Fat Talk: Trans Fatty Acids (fitsugar.com)
• Is Trans Fat Sneaking Into Your Diet? (fitsugar.com)