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Thank you everyone for participating in this month’s Mystery Food guessing game. Most of the responses were on facebook, so I will list them here. Here are the guesses:
- canned buttercream frosting
- ice cream
- pudding
- sweetened condensed milk
- Miracle Whip
- caramel ice cream topping
Caramel ice cream topping was SO close! Good job! This happens to be Marzetti’s Light Caramel Apple Dip.
Let’s review these ingredients again:
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, NON FAT MILK, POLYDEXTROSE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, BUTTER (MILK, CREAM, SALT), SUGAR, LESS THAN 2% OF: DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES.
Is nothing made from good old-fashioned sugar anymore? Everything is high fructose corn syrup based. Notice it’s the first ingredient, meaning, of all the ingredients, this one is the highest quantity. Then corn syrup. Sugar is the 7th ingredient listed. And then…aaaah!–partially hydrogenated soybean oil–this is the trans fat we talked about, just the other day. Mono and diglycerides are also trans fat.
But you may be thinking, it’s a treat, all treats are bad for us. We can have a little, right?
There are levels of bad. If you were to make your own caramel dip (not that hard) at home, you would use sugar, butter, cream, salt, vanilla, and maybe a little corn syrup (I use Griffin’s since it lists corn syrup and sugar syrup on the label, not high fructose corn syrup). These ingredients are much better for you. (Note, I did not say “healthy”, but better. For more information, check out my Ladder of Healthy Eating.)
This is an October treat for us, we don’t eat it all the time. I used to buy the Marzetti dip. No more, we are taking our steps up the ladder. Checkout any good cookbook for a recipe for real caramel. Make some at home. I especially like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and The Joy of Cooking. Real food–this is what grandma lived to 90 on!
Little late here with my update on the trans fat challenge–been busy!
Well, trans fat is probably the number one thing I look out for. I avoid it like the plague. I don’t just look for the grams of trans fat listed on the label (it’s often not correct), I look at the ingredients list and check for partially hydrogenated oils. That’s the true tell. So, I don’t have a lot in my house that contains it. The only staple I can think of is flour tortillas. Some day I will get around to making my own, but for now I still buy them. However, I abstained during the challenge. 
My family wanted Oreos with our movie night. In the past I bought Newman’s Own Newmanos, because the cream filling was trans fat free. Since companies are now required to label trans fat, Oreos has reformulated their product. They couldn’t risk everyone knowing just how many grams of trans fat their product contained. So now I will buy them about twice a year. The other night I indulged in one cookie.
Other things that come to mind are peanut butter. I buy Smucker’s Natural because it truly only contains peanuts and salt. Don’t be fooled by the other brands that try to say they don’t contain trans fat. They do, and they’re loaded with sugar.
Many bread products have trans fat added to soften them–sandwich bread, hamburger buns and hot dog buns. Packaged cookies, cakes, and chips contain trans fat. Packaged cookie dough is a big one–it’s loaded, and also packaged biscuits and rolls. Make your own cookies and use real butter. Believe me, they will be much better for you!
I used to buy crescent rolls in a tube. Pampered Chef recipes call for this ingredient all the time. Well, not any more! Not since I found out about the trans fat! Packaged pizza crust, too. Make your own with my french bread recipe. It’s so very easy and much, much more delicious!
Boxed cake mix contains trans fat and canned icing is pure trans fat and sugar. Think of it as a can of Crisco with sugar and flavoring added. I do not eat store-bought cakes anymore and trans fat is the reason. If you invite me over for a party and see that I do not partake of the cake, don’t think I have immense will power to avoid junk food. I have just read about trans fat and what it does to your body and it totally turned me off to store cakes. I make my own and enjoy them fully! Click here for my chocolate cupcake recipe.
I could go on and on about trans fats. Learn to check your labels. Cook with butter, coconut oil, and olive oil. Start making more things at home from scratch. Take your babysteps and checkout The Trans Fat Solution by Kim Severson for more information. I don’t agree with everything in this book (she mentions using soy protein, for example), but her information on trans fat is wonderful. And she has good information about coconut oil, too. The informative part of the book is only 31 pages, the rest are recipes. It’s available at my local library, it might be at yours, too.
Are you ready for another challenge?
This month, the challenge is to cut out hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils for 7 days. Check your labels, you might be surprised to learn what foods contain these oils.
Partially hydrogenated oil is the same thing as trans fat. The problem is that a lot of packages claim 0g of trans fat per serving, but it really is anywhere from 0 to .49g. The FDA allows the manufacturer to claim 0, if it is less than .5. Well, half a gram doesn’t sound bad, does it?
Let’s think about it this way, though. When was the last time you just ate 1-oz. of chips. If you have a scale, try weighing out 1 ounce. It isn’t much. Most of us eat more than one serving of most foods at a time. The manufacturer makes that serving size so small so that they can hide how much trans fat and/or sugar the item really has. So, then you are really eating possibly 1.5g of trans fat, every time you enjoy those chips. Studies show that even 2 grams of trans fat a day are dangerous.
If you normally cook with Crisco, use butter instead. Butter is a very healthy fat. It has had such a negative connotation for far too long. Click here to read about that.
Click here to learn more about hydrogenated oils.
I will check back in at the end of the 7 days and report my results. See you then!
Don’t buy fake substitutes! We learned here what is in Cool Whip. It’s loaded with trans fat. When I was a kid, I had a real thing for Cool Whip. Now that I’m grown and I read my labels, I won’t touch the stuff! It just grosses me out to realize it’s just Crisco that is whipped. Have you ever noticed how it never changes if it’s left out at room temperature? I have noticed it on a spoon in the sink, the morning after serving a dessert, and it hasn’t melted like real whip cream will. And it is hard to rinse off a spoon–because it’s grease!
So make it from scratch instead. It really only takes about 5 minutes and tastes fabulous!
1 cup heavy cream (I use raw)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tb sugar
This make about 2 cups of whipped cream. That is plenty for our family of four (with leftover). If you need more, just double this recipe.
I have learned that cream will not whip very well if it is too shallow. So don’t use a big Tupperware bowl. I use one of those square Ziploc disposable containers. This way, when I whip just one cup of cream, it is deep enough to whip in the air.
I fit a collar of foil around the bowl to catch the splatters of cream.
Whip the cream and vanilla on high until thickened, but not stiff. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and keep beating until it’s as thick as you want. I like my whip cream really thick (thicker than in the photo), but you have to be careful. If you whip it too much, it will separate into butter and whey.
The only disadvantage I see of real whipped cream to Cool Whip is it’s ability to keep. This will keep for a while in the fridge, you can make it ahead, but I’ve noticed it’s a bit runny the next day. Not sure if it would re-whip. I usually make it as close to serving time as I can.
Enjoy!
[Concerned about the saturated fat? Click here.]
If you haven’t noticed already, I highly recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, with Mary Enig. This book is available at my local library, it just might be available at yours.
This book opened my eyes to a lot of things. But I must say that the first time I checked it out, I was overwhelmed and didn’t even read it. It is so thick. Then I learned that it is mostly recipes. The portion on nutrition is only the first little bit, maybe 60 pages. That was doable to me. I have read that portion, now, over and over, each time gleaning new information.
The authors cover everything you need to know on the subject of fats, carbs, protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, and more.
This is a general resource that everyone should check out, whether you’re just starting to eat healthy, or you grind your own wheat and make your own bread.
Have your cake and eat it too!
Contrary to popular opinion, I am not the food police. I am not looking around me in shock at what people choose to eat. I really am an oblivious person. I’m usually too absorbed in thought to notice others and make judgments. I am just trying to take my babysteps and I recognize that everyone is at a different place with their babysteps.
I do enjoy my occasional desserts. I try to stick to homemade desserts and forgo the store-bought or restaurant fare. But sugar is sugar, right? Well, most (if not all) store-bought (and restaurant) desserts are very high in trans fat. You name it–cookies, cakes, pies, etc. You will be much better off if you just make something at home to enjoy. Use white flour and sugar, but PLEASE, please, please, use butter. Your heart will thank you. For more information on that, click here.
Chocolate Cupcakes
This recipe is from a Pam Anderson cookbook. I LOVE all her recipes! (I have not attempted to cut back the sugar in this recipe. Cake recipes are pretty delicate, they are not easily altered, like muffins or yeast breads are.)
I divided it in half to make 12 cupcakes.
Measure in a bowl:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour (it probably wouldn’t hurt to use all-purpose flour)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/8 teaspoon salt (just a little over 1/4 teaspoon)
Whisk those ingredients together and set aside.
Melt 7 tablespoons butter and set aside to cool.
Boil 3/8 cup (6 tablespoons or 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) water and mix with 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I use Hershey’s). Stir until smooth. Let cool a bit and then add 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.
In a separate bowl beat 2 egg whites to soft peaks.
With a hand mixer, mix melted butter into flour/sugar mixture. Add cocoa mixture and beat until batter is smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. With a spatula, fold egg whites into batter until just incorporated. Spoon into paper muffin cups.
Bake in a 350F oven 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Then let cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Now this is where you can really cut back on the sugar. The original recipe had 3 times as much sugar as this, yet this version tastes so good! The extra sugar is not necessary.
Beat together 2 1/2 tablespoons softened butter with 4 ounces soft cream cheese, until smooth. Add 2 drops red food coloring, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Beat until thoroughly incorporated and fluffy.
Spread frosting on cupcakes.
Chocolate Heart Decorations
I melted about 1 tablespoon chocolate chips and transferred to a ziploc bag. I snipped off the tip of the bag and then piped hearts onto parchment. I let them cool to harden and then placed 2 hearts on each cupcake.
If you are just now joining this blog, you will want to read Part 1 and Part 2 of My Food Journey.
Here I pick up with what I learned from my research into lowcarb dieting. I learned many things. I learned about how our body releases insulin and about the insulin rollercoaster. I learned more about how important protein is. I learned about the glycemic index and how we can lower the glycemic index of the carbs that we eat by including fat and/or fiber. But the thing that was most enlightening was that fat is not evil!!! This thrilled me, to say the least—I do love my butter! I learned that there are good fats and bad fats and I learned what trans fats are.
This information made me feel great that I was raised on the good fats, butter, cream, and red meat, so I wanted to know more. I picked up a book called, Know Your Fats, by Dr. Mary Enig. This is the definitive guide to fat. I learned about Omega-3s, Omega-6s, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated oils; and much more. Everything you wanted to know about fatty acids can be found in this book. Dr. Enig was pushing the FDA to include trans fats on food labels YEARS before they actually did. She is a champion of healthy fats. It was all starting to make sense to me. As a child I was told that hydrogenated oils were bad, but now I was learning why.
This started an obsession for me. I kept reading and researching and learning, I couldn’t get enough! This is the point that I started to make changes to my diet. I threw out all the margarine, Smart Select butter, shortening, trans fat peanut butter (Skippy, Jif, Peter Pan), and starting scrutinizing labels. At this point trans fats were not labeled on food labels. I checked out the book, The Trans Fat Solution by Kim Severson and Cindy Burke. This is a really short informative book that tells you why trans fats are bad, but also how to tell if food contains it. With this knowledge, now I know the REAL way to tell if an item has trans fats in it and guess what? It’s not by looking at the gram listings.
Some time after this I found the book, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. This book is really big, most of it being recipes. The first time I checked it out from my library I just read the nutrition information, it was really eye opening. I kept checking it out from our library and kept reading new things in it. After borrowing it from the library about ten times I decided it was time to buy it. This book opened my eyes to phytates, the substance that is in grains that leaches minerals from our bodies. I then started playing around with whole-wheat sourdough. I learned all about raw dairy in this book and then quit buying pasteurized dairy products and started making my own yogurt. From this book I learned how important animal protein is so I started making my son eat meat at dinnertime. He never liked meat very much and I convinced myself he was healthy if he had peanut butter and eggs. Not so after reading Sally Fallon’s book. (He enjoys most meat now.) J
About a year ago I joined the Yahoo group discussingnt; these are all folks that have read Nourishing Traditions. This really helped me along in my changes. I started making a lot more changes when I joined that group. There is something to be said for support, whether that is a friend, or an Internet discussion board, or even a private journal (this at least helps with accountability). Anyway, I saw that there are so many real foods that we’re missing out on because of mass marketing. According to FDA safety guidelines, food must be sealed in order to be shipped and sold on a mass scale. This is good because it prevents rotten food from being sold, but the bad news is that this process kills the nutrients in those items. (Moral: We should be getting our food locally.) So I started making my own naturally fermented sauerkraut, dill pickles, ginger carrots, and beet kvass. When these items are let to naturally ferment and then stored in the refrigerator instead of heat-sealed through traditional canning methods they are alive and full of nutrients and beneficial bacteria. Also while I was a part of that discussion group I started making Kombucha and still drink it practically every day.
Other changes I have made include less cooking with olive oil, I do use it on salad, on pasta, and to dip bread in. It is a very healthy oil when it is cold, but it will get damaged when heated. I do most of my cooking with butter and some with coconut oil. When I switched to lowcarb eating I learned to like a lot more veggies, since veggies have a lower glycemic index than breads and pastas. Thankfully when my husband went on his diet we cleared the cupboards of the snack cakes and boxed macaroni and cheese. He had quit drinking soda and Kool-Aid many years before. He switched to Baked Lays in his diet days and I have since got him to switch to plain corn chips (Baked Lays are about as processed as you can get). I have since got him off the granola bars; I now make him muffins to take to work for breakfast. I now make our own lunchmeat from boneless, skinless chicken breasts, rather than buying processed lunchmeat. He lost his weight by really watching his portion intake and cutting most fat out. Since I learned all about healthy fat, I now feed him lots of fat in his meals and he hasn’t gained any of the weight back. He still watches his sugar intake. I take coconut oil daily now. I started taking cod liver oil last fall. I occasionally take a probiotic supplement, but I feel I am getting a lot of beneficial bacteria from my homemade yogurt, Kombucha, and naturally fermented veggies. I started making my own sour cream and buttermilk (more beneficial bacteria). I have switched to aluminum-free baking powder (Rumford). About a year ago I stopped using commercial shampoo, conditioner, bar soaps, shower gels, lotions, and facial cleansing products (I’ll give more details in a later post) because of the chemical content. I switched from drinking distilled water to filtered water (spring is best, we’re just not there yet). And I use plastics a lot less now, I’m not completely away from them, but I am taking my babysteps.
Now keep in mind that all these babysteps I took were over a period of years, this really all started about 6 years ago. I’m just hoping that my list will inspire you and encourage you in your changes.
Looking back over my food journey shows me 1) I ate pretty good as a child, but there was a high level of phytates, which I think accounts for my dealings with mineral deficiencies now and 2) it is SO important to teach your kids about healthy eating and why you choose to eat what you eat. I wasn’t taught and had to educate myself as an adult after eating poorly for about 10 years. It may look like I have come full circle and now eat the way I did as a kid, but there are a few differences. I watch my carb intake; I don’t eat a lot of breads and pastas. Even if you’re choosing all whole-grain bread products you can still go overboard, remember, balance is key. We ate a LOT of grains in our family; my blood sugar just can’t handle that now. I feed my kids more carbs than I eat, but I do make sure they are getting animal protein every day.
The journey doesn’t end here—it goes on and on. We all should never stop growing, never stop learning, and never stop changing!
Update: I forgot to mention that I have started soaking some grains, we eat soaked old fashioned oatmeal once a week and soaked multi-grain pancakes on occasion.
Since I asked you all to tell what babysteps you have taken, I thought you would want to know what I have changed.
Before I go into my changes, I will show you where I came from. Let me take you back to the beginning. I was raised on homemade whole wheat bread. All our pasta was whole wheat. We had to take cod liver oil and blackstrap molasses. We ate a lot of wild fish and game—trout, salmon, halibut, caribou, and moose. We had plenty of treats, they were just all sweetened with honey. There was never a box mix or canned item to be found in the house. Everything was made from scratch, from the pudding to the pies to the Thanksgiving dinners. We ate plenty of butter and cream.
We ate plenty of everything. I don’t remember moderation being taught in our home. I guess the thinking was that most of what we ate was healthy, so what was the reason to limit it. We were a family with high metabolisms. The limiting only came when the cost was high. We were a family of six and would occasionally go out to Burger King. We would share a couple orders of fries and all get waters. At Christmas time we would get a carton of egg nog and each get a small glass. I think it was just this combination that resulted in some over indulgence on my part once I reached adulthood. I remember when I was first married, I bought a carton of egg nog all for myself and then made myself sick because I drank too much of it. I admit that this is still a weak area for me, overeating. I am blessed with high metabolism still, but it’s not as high as it was in high school. J
When I was about 9 or 10, my younger sister and brother were found to be allergic to dairy products, so the whole family went on soy. We had soy milk in the house for the next 10 years or so. I never liked it too much so I remember choosing to do without whenever milk was called for. We had tofu and plenty of other soy products, as well.
Once I reached my teenage years I was embarrassed when friends would come over and all our food was weird. Whenever I was away from home, I would seek out the “good” food every chance I got. I would bring my lunch to school every day and throw it in the trash because I was so embarrassed. Years later I found out my sister did the same thing! I went to a small private Christian school with no cafeteria so I would just eat whatever the vending machine had to offer for lunch, a candy bar and can of pop or a bag of microwave popcorn. We weren’t allowed to leave the campus, but sometimes we would anyway, then I would get fast food for lunch. Little Caesar’s was a favorite, being right across the street from school. Loved that Crazy Bread!
I started cooking at nine years old. My mother was often gone, being a midwife. She called one day and told me to make some meatloaf for dinner. She told me to write down all the ingredients, dump them into a bowl and mix with my hands. Then throw it in a pan and bake. I kept that “recipe” that I had written down for years and years. I guess that was the beginning of my recipe collection. It now includes many years worth of cooking magazines, many cookbooks, and various clippings and printouts. Anyway, I did a lot of cooking for the family while living at home. Most of the things I learned to cook were from either watching my mom or just having to do it. This is why it is second nature for me to make everything from scratch.
Enter my husband. When I met him, he subsisted on KoolAid, soda, pizza rolls, ramen noodles, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and Little Debbies. When we got married I started trying out foods I had never had before. I worked fulltime so I wanted things that were convenient. We tried some Hamburger Helper and I can remember regularly making chicken and rice—the dish that calls for a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup. One of our favorites was a store-bought angel food cake with strawberries (with that strawberry sauce you buy in the tub) and Cool Whip. I made things from scratch at first, but slowly slipped into buying more and more packaged food items, like spaghetti sauce, granola bars, Yoplait yogurt, instant oatmeal, frozen fries, etc. I EVEN started buying Crisco for cookies and pie crust!!!!
To be continued…
I think our society thinks that being healthy is a balancing act, that there are a tiny set of scales in the body. They think that you keep these scales balanced by doing and eating healthy things, even though you eat unhealthy things also. Hey, I know none of us eat a perfect diet! If you eat something unhealthy, you just have to do a bit more exercise to burn it off. If you want that dessert, you better have a salad with your meal. If you drink some soda, you should have some water to balance it out. This thinking is wrong and if you stay with me, I will tell you why.
I have to think that this originated, in part, from our parents and grandparents saying, “You have to eat all your dinner if you want dessert!” Also, the exercise era has given people a little latitude with what they can afford to eat and stay trim (and staying trim, in our society, carries the appearance of health; not always true, folks).
The thing that we need to get into our heads is that it’s not all about fat, good or bad, or calories. I said it before and I will say it again, the food we eat affects us on a cellular level. I will show two prime examples here, although there are more. First let’s talk about trans fat, it’s not just a bad fat that will clog your arteries and cause heart problems (if that isn’t bad enough), it will actually become a part of your very cells! Every cell in your body has a cell wall, made primarily of fat. When you ingest trans fatty acids, they become part of that cell wall. For nursing mothers, trans fat replaces some of the healthy, vital fat that your baby needs, so the baby’s cell walls are also being made up of trans fat!
According to Tom Valentine, author of Facts on Fats and Oils1, “When this man-made molecule of fatty acid, called trans fatty acid, gets into cell membrane construction our cells cannot function optimally – we cannot ward off viruses as well”, and, “this degeneration of the cell membrane is cumulative as we continue to eat these trans fats every day – it doesn’t improve over time, or simply vanish, it slowly gets worse and worse.”
My second example is sugar – it’s not just extra calories, it will rob your body of minerals, weaken your immune system, put you on the insulin roller coaster (which we talked about before), stress and fatigue your adrenal glands, and feed harmful yeast and bacteria in your digestive system (causing a host of problems that I will talk about later). These are not things you can jog off! This is why you won’t hear me talk about calories here. It is all about WHAT we are eating, not necessarily HOW MUCH.
I was talking to my husband about this the other night and he always comes up with the best analogies. He said, “How does your car do if you add some water in with the gasoline?” We all know, it’s won’t run well at all, even if there is just a LITTLE bit of water added. Our bodies are the same, a little bit of bad is still bad and our bodies won’t run optimally on food that man has adulterated. My point is not to convince you into changing eating habits by making you feel guilty, but rather, I don’t want you to be deceived. I want you to be well informed and make informed choices!
I’m asking you to renew your mind in this area, make a paradigm shift. Just because exercise doesn’t counteract these junk food woes, doesn’t mean we stop exercising. It means we work on cutting out the junk food. Your sole source of trans fats is packaged food. Don’t buy margarine or ANY butter substitute (if it’s not butter, it was made by man), don’t use shortening in your baking, don’t buy pre-made pie crust – make your own with butter. Practically every peanut butter on the store shelf2 contains trans fat; unfortunately you can’t trust the labels to give you full disclosure. Look for PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OIL on the ingredient listing, if it is there, DON’T buy the item. This is listed on so many foods that most of us don’t realize. When I mention trans fats, most people say, “I don’t use margarine, I only use butter.” That is FANTASTIC, but trans fats are in peanut butter, chips, crackers, graham crackers, pre-made pie crusts, all canned dough, like crescent roll dough and pizza crust; cookies, snack cakes, candy, candy bars, some breads, frozen French fries, fish sticks, pizza, chicken nuggets, burritos, pot pies, cake mixes, Bisquick, canned frosting, and flour tortillas to name a few. This is one of the reasons why these items ended up on the bottom rung above fast food on my ladder.
I think I’ve hammered away at the trans fat issue, let’s get back to sugar. We can drastically limit our sugar intake by cutting out packaged food, also. Trans fat is an item you don’t ever want, but sugar is something I know we will all eat from time to time. A good friend of mine uses a word that fits well here – deliberate. We must be deliberate in everything, raising our children, spending money, even how we eat. I will deliberately eat a dessert now and then, but I try VERY hard NOT to allow sugar into my diet that I don’t deliberately want! The two ways we are deceived into unknowingly eating sugar are through deceptive marketing and ignorance. Many foods are marketed as healthy, but contain lots of sugar, such as breakfast cereals, sweetened yogurt, granola bars, fruit snacks (these are just candy, folks), fruit roll-ups, many juices, smoothies, and vitamin waters. This is where those imaginary tiny scales come in again. I think most people are aware that these foods contain sugar, but they believe the vitamins, whole grain fiber, or beneficial bacteria in that item balance it out. I will say it again – we must shift our thinking away from this balancing act. Remember the car running with water in the tank. Now for ignorance, there are a lot of items that contain sugar as a flavor enhancer, but are not dessert, so we don’t really think we are eating sugar. Things we all use, like ketchup, salad dressing, pickles, dip, Miracle Whip, salsa, and more. This is where label reading will help you out. Sugar is easy to pick out of ingredient listings, but also be aware of sugar’s other names – high fructose corn syrup and anything ending in –ose, dextrose, glucose, sucrose, etc.
So be informed, be deliberate, do what you can do and don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can somehow balance the junk food with something like veggies or exercise. Take you babysteps and move toward the whole food that God created that fuels your body the most effectively!
1 Quoted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
2 You can find natural peanut butter. I buy Smucker’s; it only contains peanuts and salt.
Need a quick breakfast or snack? Instead of reaching for a granola bar, keep these on hand. Refer to the Epiphany article to see why you don’t want to eat granola bars. I feel like I’m always the bearer of bad news, but I have to tell you that muffin mixes in the boxes or pouches have trans fats in them and/or they call for unhealthy vegetable oils. Making muffins from scratch is just as easy; it may only take 5 extra minutes. On a side note, please know that I don’t tell everyone to make things from scratch to be like a Martha Stewart. I wasn’t raised to eat packaged, processed food, but I easily slipped into eating them all the time once I was on my own because I was not educated about why we ate whole foods at home. Now that I have educated myself I am on a mission to educate others and show how making things from scratch is easy, but also much better for you.
I make one batch of these each weekend for my husband to take for breakfast in the car on the way to work. He thinks they taste like Twinkies, I suppose that’s a compliment?! I can handle them with less sugar. If you want, you can try 3 tablespoons of each sugar. Muffin recipes (quick-breads) are really easy to tweak.Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a muffin pan. You can make 12 small muffins, 8 med-large muffins, or 6 extra large muffins that really hang over the top (I make 8). Note: I use a stoneware muffin pan, so cook time may vary slightly.
Mix together in a large bowl:
2 Cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder (I prefer Rumford, it’s aluminum-free)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Melt 4 tablespoons butter, let cool and set aside.
In a smaller bowl beat 1 egg and add:
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
¼ cup milk (preferable whole)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or almond is good, too)
Then slowly drizzle in the melted butter as you are whisking the liquid ingredients.
Then pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Spoon into the muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
If you want to make these healthier you can replace half the flour with whole-wheat pastry flour (soft wheat), anything more and they will be dense, but feel free to experiment. If you want a more natural sweetener, I suggest Sucanat or Rapadura (one and the same). Sucanat/Rapadura is REAL sugar; click the link to see how this sugar differs from the refined product we’re used to. It is unrefined, truly a whole food product. I like to use it in muffins and especially oatmeal, mmm! It is a stronger flavor, since the molasses isn’t separated out, but it also retains its vitamins and minerals, unlike refined sugar. Take your babysteps, make these muffins, then try them with less sugar, then try them with a little whole-wheat flour and then try a natural sweetener. Don’t try to jump too far ahead, too quickly.
Part of the advantage these muffins have over granola bars is their fat content. (I even eat these with more butter spread on them.) If you haven’t read my article on fat, you simply must, it is a foundational point. Fat will give you energy for longer and will help slow the absorption of sugar and carbs into your bloodstream, thus keeping your insulin at a steady level. When your insulin spikes up, it comes back down rapidly, causing a crash and making you feel hungry, irritable, tired, lightheaded, headachy, and sometimes nauseous. (We especially don’t want our children to experience this, can you say cranky? Yet, children eat these foods all the time, perhaps they would behave better on healthier foods?) So you typically reach for another carb item to snack on and go through the whole roller coaster again. This blood sugar roller coaster is one I knew all too well and now take precaution to avoid (now that I know how). My secret weapon is fat. Fat does not make you fat and if you are eating healthy fat, like butter, it will not harm your heart or arteries, either. A few years ago I heard a nutritionist, at a meeting, say that we should NEVER eat sugar without fat. I took that message to heart and it has cured me of the blood sugar roller coaster. (Keep in mind, too, that by sugar I mean ALL carbs, because they are made up of different sugars or are broken down into sugars during digestion.) If I have a carb, even fruit, I HAVE to eat fat with it. If I eat an apple, I eat it with peanut butter or cheese, or else I will be starving in an hour (often with lightheadedness and nausea). If I eat a dessert, I choose richer desserts, like cheesecake, etc. I have found, too often, that if I eat a dessert with little or no fat it will make me feel terrible. I have also discovered that I can eat really small meals if I want (usually lunch) as long as I include a healthy portion of fat. This way I can keep on top of my weight and that’s always an added plus!
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