Super Healthy Banana Bread Most Kids Will Eat

December 5, 2008

The world already has too many Banana Bread recipes. This one is as healthy and low fat as it gets. So many foods have become nutritional and weight control booby traps. The assumptions we make about bran muffins, fruit smoothies, yogurt, or oatmeal cookies might be far off the mark in terms of their healthiness. Too often, they’re just diet ambushes waiting to strike.

Eat This, Not That

Have you seen the articles and features from the book Eat This, Not That ?The book is by David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine. The 3 books are about learning to make simple, leaner, healthier food substitutions at home and in restaurants. Weight loss foods, best drinks and restaurants for kids, supermarket selections … specific foods and menu items are identified. It’s not only about calories. I like this question that asks “Is this the worst drink on the planet?”

This banner is linked to the book site (not certain how long this offer is valid, and remember there is a third book on Supermarket Survival),

Avoiding prepared foods works better than anything. If I can make my own soups, salad dressings, and baked goods, I can control what’s in them. You can experiment by changing any recipe to contain less fat, less sugar, more fiber. Almost always, it still tastes fine.

The original version of this recipe appeared in Bonnie Sterns’ More Heartsmart Cooking but it’s been altered.

Stern’s simply fabulous Simply HeartSmart Cooking has the honor of being the cookbook from which I’ve made the most recipes, just about all of them in fact.

Only the die-hard junk-food-and-candy gang won’t eat this banana bread. Or those extremely suspicious and selective little souls out there, who will eat peanut butter, prawns, and not much else. I know two of these and love them dearly, but they wouldn’t find anything they could eat in my house. It would be stress city.

You can always mix in chocolate chips, nuts, or put honey, icing sugar, or jam on it. Let them choose a special jam (it would be Strawberry from the grocery store chez nous) and make sure this is the only thawed bread in the house they could put their special jam on. This is the bare bones recipe. In my house, if I add anything, I start registering complaints. If I try to make them eat the polluted version, I can expect notes like this.

Between my friend, Jan, and I, we’ve devised the lowest fat, lowest sugar, highest fiber, best tasting Banana Bread out there. Nutrition-packed. Takes 15 minutes to make if you try to go as slowly as possible. This is a great place to begin family food and lifestyle changes without rocking the boat so much that people fall out on the first trip.

Ingredients

3 bananas, mashed
½ c. buttermilk or plain yogurt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. oil ( I use a canola/olive blend)
1/2 c. dark brown sugar
1 ½ c. whole wheat flour (I use organic Spelt flour from the Bulk Barn for any baking that calls for whole wheat, and much that doesn’t)
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ c. freshly ground flax seed (buzz it in your coffee grinder ; you can see it at The Healthiest Smoothie )
¼ c. wheat germ
¼ c. wheat bran

Technique

Same as every recipe on this site, I believe : Fling it all in one bowl in approximately the order above. Mix it all up.

Pour it into loaf pans. I line the loaf pans with wax paper because it’s fastest.

Jan adds a delicious texture bonus. She greases the loaf pans (instead of using wax paper) and sprinkles the inside with whole flax seeds. That way, the crust of the bread is a little crunchy. It’s very good and the flax seeds are invisible against the color of the crust, in case the skeptical souls are looking for something to distrust.

Bake it for 50 min – 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Stock your freezer. The loaves are great to take to the beach or on family trips, and can be thawed quickly if people come over to visit. Got a houseful of kids? Slice a loaf, put it out on a plate so they can help themselves. Add a few slices of apple so it looks pretty. You’ll be cleaning crumbs. Even the white-bread disciples will eat it.

Banana Pumpkin Bread

I found this great recipe at allrecipes.com . I’m always looking for ways to get yellow vegetables into everyone. I made it just as it says, dumped in about 1/4 c. of wheat germ and wheat bran, and called it Pumpkin Pie Cake. Went over big. It looks like this:

Firecracker Cornbread

This recipe for cornbread comes from 101 Cookbooks. It is outstanding. The next time I make it, I’ll double the red pepper flakes so it has a real snap.

Posted by Christine Scaman | Filed Under Food & Recipes