PANCAKE PANACEA

How would you like to more than double the protein, slash the carbohydrate, and increase the vital fibre in your splendid blueberry- pancake breakfast?  Yes, those fluffy pancakes you love can be nutritionally elevated with a simple change that doesn’t make them taste like “health” food.  No kidding.

My BW, the education tipster, http://educationtipster.blogspot.com/ loves pancakes.  She likes sour cream on them and syrup and butter as well.  Because of her blood sugar chemistry, I hate it when she bats her eyes and asks me to cook them.  She bought this box of pancake mix; the kind you just add water, stir and bake on the griddle.  I use milk instead of water, but lately have changed this pancake meal to the point where it is very healthy compared to the usual.  

Two things that are normally absent from pancakes but are important dietary components are: protein and dietary fibre.  If you like oatmeal, a great breakfast to control cholesterol, you may be familiar with oatmeal bran, a high-fibre cereal.  I mention it here because I used a little in my BW’s pancakes which increased its fibre.  Some of the commercial pancake syrups, primarily composed of corn syrup products, are very carbohydrate laden and so I replaced these with natural sorghum syrup.  If you don’t care for sour cream with your pancakes, I would urge you to try the newly available Greek style yoghurt, because it is very high in protein and the sorghum reduces the carbohydrates while being capable of sweetening the yoghurt.  Should Sorghum not be available, you could select cane syrup or maple syrup.  

The regular blueberry pancake serving, including ½ cup blueberries and regular pancake syrup has over 100 grams of carbohydrate, some simple sugars;  6.5 grams of protein and 3 grams of fibre.  You may remember that ingested simple carbohydrates stimulate insulin flow which creates fat storage which adds weight gain.

My recipe, using milk instead of water and the yoghurt instead of butter includes 62 grams of carbohydrate, 16.75 grams of protein and 4.5 grams of fibre.  If it tastes great, why not choose the optimum recipe?

Pancakes                                                  serves 2

2/3 cup of pancake mix*

1/3 cup of oatmeal bran`

¾ cup of milk (I used whole but you can use skim)

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

½ cup Greek style yoghurt

2 tablespoons pure sorghum (can substitute with pure cane or maple syrup)

• Put the pancake mix and oatmeal bran in a bowl, stir.
• Whisk in the milk, stir to moisten but do not over-stir
• Get your griddle hot (375F/ 190C)  Either smear with butter or spray with non-stick
• Using a tablespoon, spoon out batter for the first pancake
• Place blueberries atop the pancake
• Repeat with next pancake and so forth
• After a minute, look at first pancake, when holes appear, flip

When all pancakes are cooked, divide in two and serve with the yoghurt and syrup.

According to the American Heart Association’s 1999 statistical report, 52% of American adults have abnormally high total cholesterol levels (200mg/dL or higher) and 20% have seriously high total cholesterol (240mg/dL or more).

A substance in oats called beta glucans, a gummy soluble fibre that interferes with the absorption and production of cholesterol, allows more of it to be extracted from the bloodstream. Even if you are not concerned with a problematic blood lipid profile, you may prefer these pancakes because you get more nutritional bang for the buck.

* If you make your pancakes from scratch, that’s good. Just remember we want 2/3 cups worth of dry pancake, including leavening and any sweetener you may use normally and 1/3 cup of oatmeal bran for two servings.   So, no matter how many pancakes you are making, use this 2/1 ratio.