Pancakes Verse, Same as the First! Finals Week Version and a Whole Lot ...Better!

Breakfast at my apartment usually consists of oatmeal and some combination of almonds or peanutbutter, and banana or appleasauce. I use sugar-free applesauce or smooshed banana to sweeten my oatmeal instead of sugar. And cinnamon, of course!

It is not often that I stray from my oatmeal staple. However, this is the weekend before finals week. I'm stressed, craving chocolate, and looking for something (anything!) to give me a break from biochem and microbiology. Looking through my cupboards I found cocoa powder, a ripe banana, some spelt flour, and (of course) oatmeal. Pancakes it is!

If you've read this blog before, you may be aware of my usual opposition to pancakes. These, too, are protein-packed-pancakes and are made with ingredients with a much lower glycemic index than ordinary pancakes made from ground flour.

So what's this glycemic index business? GI is a ranking of carbohydrate-containing foods on a scale of 1-100, depending on how quickly and to what extent they raise blood sugar levels after you eat them. Foods that can be broken down sooner (simple sugars, ground flours, white bread) are rapidly digested and cause a greater fluctuation in blood sugar, these are high-GI foods. Low-GI foods produce gradual rises in blood sugar (and therefore insulin levels) because they are broken down more slowly in the body (think carbs in fruit, whole grains, beans and legumes).

Fun Fact: Recent studies from Harvard School of Public Health indicate that the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are strongly related to the GI of the overall diet.

Which makes sense... if the foods you eat break down into sugar faster, your body needs to respond to a huge rush of sugar at once by pumping out a ton of insulin. Doing this over and over can lead into insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. (Image from http://www.glycemicindex.com/about.php)

Glycemic index in mind, I wanted to create delicious chocolatey pancakes without adding any extra sugar. This is where the banana came in. Ripe bananas are incredibly sweet. Perfect!

Protein Peanut Butter-Banana-Chocolate Oatmeal Pancakes

What you're gonna need (for ~5 pancakes):

• 1 ripe banana
• 3/4c oats
• 1/2 c spelt flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2Tbs peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 to 3/4c water (add water until you reach pancake-batter consistency)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Putting it together:

1. Smash the ripe banana with the back of a fork, or spoon, or your fist (it is finals week, after all)
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients together
3. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat
4. Cook the batter 1/4c at a time like regular pancakes (flip when bubbles form and the edges are dry)
5. I drizzled a little honey over my pancakes. Syrup from the grocery store contains high fructose corn syrup which the body can't process very well, but that's a story for another day.

Peanutbutter, eggs, and oatmeal are all sources of protein in this recipe. Mixing a legume (peanuts) with a grain (oatmeal) produces a complete protein. Eggs are a complete protein by themselves - they come from an animal source. It may be high in protein, but this recipe is by no means low-calorie... perhaps best to share these with your roommates!

Om nom nom!