I want to highlight a recipe this month that hits all notes of comfort food for the season while challenging your perception of sweet a bit.
Sweet cravings, sugar consumption, artificial sweetener consumption is something that literally comes up every single day with clients. Sugar, in many ways, is the single most detrimental ingredient for your health (read more about sugar the other white powder drug here.) Switching to artificial sweeteners is not the answer, this too will continue to perpetuate your reliance on “sweet items” in your diet. (I wont' get into the billion other reasons why artificial sweeteners are toxic in this post)
I encourage my clients to explore adding more naturally sweet foods to their diet. Things like sweet potato, squash, pumpkin, even carrots are supportive foods for the pancreas and ultimately can help to shift your reliance on sweet foods.
Baked goods are a tough one, sometimes they can be triggers all on their own. Muffins, let's face it, are typically nothing more than smaller cakes. A “muffin” inherently is NOT a healthy food. My philosophy is to make baked goods with wholesome real food ingredients and limited added sweetness from natural sources like maple syrup, applesauce, raw honey, coconut palm sugar, and stay tuned for my experimenting with lucoma powder. Check out my besthealthy baked good tips here.
This pumpkin cacao (cacao is raw chocolate) muffin has about 1 teaspoon of maple syrup per muffin. A very small amount, but the spices and pumpkin lend the perception of sweet while not throwing your blood sugar levels into overdrive.
Upon first bite you may think, hmm this isn't sweet enough, that's ok. I encourage you to continue.
Look at those flecks of raw chocolate!
Close your eyes, chew each bite really well. Make this an exercise. How sweet is it really?
Over time the food that we are used to grabbing and eating has just become sweeter and sweeter. Food manufactures know that sugar is addictive, in fact when creating new food products scientists work to find the perfect amount of sweetness that will produce what industry insiders call, “the bliss point” this is the point of eating that sends you over the moon. Addicted. Unable to eat just one bite.
Cause you are sweet enough!
Take control of the sweet in your life. Try this recipe.
Feel free to throw some sweet enough “training wheels” in the form of natural jam or seasonal pumpkin butter (I LOVE this pumpkin butter recipe) on a few bites.
SuperFood Pumpkin Cacao Muffins
Ingredients
Wet
- 1 cup of pumpkin puree
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup of maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 cup of brown rice flour
Dry
- 2 tablespoons of coconut flour
- 1 tablespoon of arrowroot powder
- 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of raw cacao nibs
Instructions
- Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin with muffin liners that have been lightly greased with a bit of coconut oil
- In a blender or food processor, combine all wet ingredients together. Blend until smooth and well combined.
- In a large bowl whisk together all dry ingredients except cacao nibs.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
- Stir cacao nibs into batter
- Fill muffin cups 3/4 full
- Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.
- Allow to cool fully before enjoying.
- Serve with pumpkin butter, or homemade jam
Nutrition
Can I Help You Meal Plan?
Enter your email below to download my free - one week - real food (mostly plants) meal plan. Grocery list, recipes, prep schedule, it's all there for you 🙂
