Paleo Pancakes
This basic recipe is popular with people who follow the Paleo diet, because it contains nothing un-natural – no refined sugars or fats. It’s also great for anyone with gluten intolerance because it doesn’t include any flour, unlike most standard pancake recipes.
Ingredients
Instructions
6 steps
In a large bowl mash the bananas
Add the eggs, almond butter, shredded coconut, vanilla extract, and cinnamon and mix (you can do this by hand, but it’ll be much easier if you have a blender or food processor)
Heat the coconut oil over a medium-high heat in a large skillet or pan
Pour two tablespoons of the batter onto the skillet for each pancake (you’ll need to do two or three batches, depending on the size of your pan), and brown each side, flipping carefully with a spatula (two tablespoons of batter makes smaller pancakes, which are much easier to flip).
You’ll get about 8 small pancakes from your mixture, so either eat them as you go along, or keep them warm under a tea towel and eat the whole lot in one go!
Serve with berries or other fruit if desired
Notes
On The Ingredients
Two ripe bananas
- Good source of energy – 200 calories in 2 medium-sized bananas.
- Natural source of sugar – good way to satisfy sweet cravings without eating refined sugar (against the Paleo ‘rules’)
Two eggs
- Great source of protein (body needs it for building and repairing tissues – bones, muscles, cartilage, skin)
- Protein also used to make enzymes, which we need for good digestion
- Helps balance hormone levels – which ultimately leads to a better mood!
- Proteins are a great way of preventing weight gain because they make you feel full for longer, so you’re less likely to bust open the biscuit tin an hour after eating!
Two tablespoons of almond butter
- Alternative – peanut butter (more readily available and cheaper)
- But almond butter contains more vitamins and minerals, more fibre, and more mono-unsaturated fat (‘good’ fat). It’s also lower in saturated fat (the kind we should avoid)
One teaspoon of unsweetened shredded coconut
- Adds texture and flavour
- Good source of iron and fibre
Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
- Used to enhance the flavour of the dish
- Alternative ingredient – the seeds of half a vanilla pod
Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
- Adds flavour – but a flavour some people don’t like
- Can be left out if you don’t like cinnamon
- But it gives the pancakes an extra health kick, with cinnamon being proven to help balance blood sugar levels in some recent studies
A tablespoon of coconut oil
- Tends be used in Paleo recipes and advocated by many nutritionists and dieticians
- Said to aid weight loss – particularly belly fat – by increasing metabolic rate
- Easy to digest and contributes to healthy functioning of the thyroid and endocrine system
- As a bonus, it’s really great for hair, skin and nails, too!
Photos
On The Paleo Diet
- Lots of talk about the ‘Paleo diet’ over the last decade or so
- Also referred to as the Paleolithic diet, the Caveman diet and the Stone-age diet
- Been around quite a long time(can be traced back to a 1975 book by gastroenterologist Walter Voegtlin) – but popularized more recently in the best-selling book, the Paleo Diet, by Loren Cordain
- Based on the idea of eating only the kind of food our Paleolithic ancestors would’ve eaten two and a half million years ago
- In Paleo recipes, you tend to find a lot of vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, eggs, and lean meats
- Basically a high protein-low carb diet
- It’s a lifestyle component of some sports – Crossfit, in particular
- The Paelo diet is also famous for helping people to reduce their weight by leaving out certain food groups – such as dairy, grains, beans and pulses, sugar and processed oils
- In fact, all processed food is ruled out under the paleo diet – that’s food that’s been altered from its natural state in some way
