Banana and Blueberry Muffins

Paleo, grain-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, sugar-free, low GI, low carb

Quickly took a picture before it all got eaten :-)

Dry ingredients:
1 cup of ground almonds
1/3 cup of coconut flour
1 teaspoonful of gluten-free baking powder

Wet ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup of stewed Bramley apples, room temperature (cooked with 1/3 cup of water, 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon and  stevia to taste - I add 20 drops of NuNaturals Clear Stevia)
2 small mashed bananas 
1/4 cup of melted coconut oil (room temperature, not hot!)
1 tablespoonful of sugar-free vanilla essence
Stevia / Xylitol to taste (I normally use 15 drops of NuNaturals Clear Stevia and 1 teaspoonful of Xylitol
1/3 cup of water

Extra ingredients:
1 (roughly) chopped small banana 
1 handful of blueberries

This batch is without blueberries

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (320F).

                                                                                    
Method: 
Thoroughly mix all dry ingredients in a small bowl
Put the 3 eggs (white and yolk together) in a large mixing ball and beat the eggs until they are fluffy.  Carry on whisking and spoonful by spoonful add the stewed apples, followed by the mashed bananas (Not the chopped ones yet!) and then the coconut oil.  Add the stevia and the vanilla essence lastNow add 5 tablespoonful of the dry ingredients followed by a little of the 1/3 cup of water.  Repeat this until you mixed in all the dry ingredients.
Add chopped bananas and blueberries to the mix and stir it in gently.

Put the mixture into oiled muffin form (I use coconut oil) and bake it on 160 degrees (320F) for 40 minutes or until golden brown (cooking time will depend on your oven and the muffin size)
The above quantities make 12 x 2.5 ins muffins (measurement is taken from the top - widest part - of the muffins).

Enjoy!

Yumm!

Why did I decide to blog?

Hello,

If you are here, you, or one of your loved ones might also have food intolerances.  Or perhaps you are interested in improving your diet, achieving higher energy levels or reaching a healthy weight.  Because - inevitably - eating a low GI, gluten-free, grain-free, lactose-free, sugar-free diet will have a lot of positive effects on your life.  This is a life-style choice, not a fad diet.  The diet you eat will massively influence your levels of health and well-being.

Some people see exclusion diets as a 'limitation' to what they can eat.  I prefer to see it that we all have a choice.  You can either eat everything you can buy and pay the price; indigestion, weight gain, fatigue, sleeping disturbances, joint pain, headaches, frequent colds, candidiasis, feeling generally unwell, just to name a few, or you can be healthy, have high energy levels, be the naturally slim person you are meant to be, free of pain and disorders, supporting your body to do what it is supposed to do.  AND eat delicious foods at the same time.  

Some people still associate healthy food with bland, tasteless salads, calorie counting, no treats, boring foods.  The reality couldn't be further from this!  

I will be posting tasty, healthy, nourishing recipes that I have created during the last 15 years of my life since I have learnt that I have gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance, and of late, that I cannot tolerate sugar - which gave me a new challenge in creating tasty, sugar-free treats.

I love cooking and baking which is a good thing as eating out can be difficult.  Often there is lack of understanding about intolerances.  For example gluten is not just in wheat, and if you are lactose intolerant, you can still eat butter (as lactose is milk sugar, and butter is pure fat so has no carbs therefore no sugar...).  Or simply they cannot be bothered to do some simple modifications to the food you ordered to ensure that it meets your requirements, and it’s you who ends up suffering the consequences.

Diet and nutrition is something I'm very passionate about and I wanted to share my knowledge and experience, as nowadays more and more people find themselves intolerant or affected by certain foods and the vast number of diets on the market often contradict each other and create confusion in people who are seeking guidance to a healthy life-style.  I'm a trained acupuncturist and I have written my dissertation on how diet affects one's energy levels.  In one word: hugely.

Due to pollution and stress our increased nutritional needs are not being met by mass-produced junk food and due to changes in farming methods, depleted soil and mass-farming our food is not as nutritious as it once used to be.  This usually makes it necessary to take some dietary supplements.

Again, this is a multi-billion pound market, with most people not knowing what to buy and waste their money on supplements that yield little - if any - results. 

I am looking forward to sharing my experience in this arena as well and if I can help just one person, then this blog was worth writing :-)

I hope people will read and enjoy my blog and if you have any questions, just ask away!

Stay healthilicious!

Anita