Eat sensibly during holidays with vegan muffins

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What does the day after Thanksgiving look like in your kitchen? If your kitchen is anything like mine, your fridge is crammed full of leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce and gravy. And your counters are laden with leftover dinner rolls and an assortment of pies.

The holiday season, starting with Thanksgiving and ending with New Year’s Eve, is a whirlwind of family, festivities and feasting. While I think those special dinners are important to enjoy guilt-free, I also think the rest of the time it’s important to eat sensibly.

I recently read Registered Dietician Abbey Sharp’s recommendations for enjoying the holiday season without regret and without putting on extra pounds. She makes many good points that are easy to put into practice starting today.

Her first recommendation: quit restricting yourself. While this may sound contrary to sensible eating advice, it actually makes sense. Sharp recommends sticking to your normal exercise, breakfast and lunch schedule and eating regular portions at that evening’s party, rather than over-exercising or restricting calories beforehand and then gorging at the party.

Another smart strategy is to seek out pleasure. The encouragement here is to scope out the buffet and identify “must have” favorites and enjoy a reasonable portion of those along with healthy salads and veggie sides.

Sharp advises making every bite a great one. Most foods start to dull in flavor after three good-sized bites, so her advice is to stop eating before the flavor dies out. My very fit friend Stacey taught me this a few years ago and she calls it the “two bite rule.” Eat anything you want, but just have two bites of it.

An important point Sharp brings up is to watch your liquid calories. We have a tendency to forget that wine, beer and cocktails not only contain calories but can also cloud our judgment regarding when to stop eating and walk away from the buffet table. Her advice: drink two glasses of water between each glass of alcohol to help pace yourself.

One last piece of wise counsel is to hang out with friends, not food. Sharp recommends standing far away from the food and engaging in conversation with family, friends, or better yet a healthy, fit friend who can be your healthy eating buddy for the evening.

This week’s recipe comes from Vegan Health and Fitness Magazine. I have several friends that practice veganism. Some are dietary vegans, meaning they do not eat animal products including meats, seafood, eggs, dairy and animal-derived foods like honey.

Others are ethical vegans that not only follow a vegan diet but also refrain from wearing or using any animal products such as leather, wool, silk, goose down, pearls and shells. Some also avoid medications that contain animal ingredients like lactose, gelatin and stearates.

While I am not a vegan, I do appreciate vegan recipes and regularly include them in my meal planning. This week’s recipe is a great one to try if you are testing the waters of veganism or just want to make some yummy banana muffins that can be part of your sensible eating plan during the holiday season.

Vegan Banana-Nut Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups oat flour
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup nuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray or line with paper baking cups. To make oat flour, blend oats in a blender until it is powder. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oat flour, brown rice flour, baking powder and cinnamon.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the mashed bananas, maple syrup, coconut oil (if needed, warm to a liquid state) and vanilla. Stir until well mixed. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and mix well to form a thick batter. Stir in 1/2 cup nuts, reserving remaining nuts for topping. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin tin.

Sprinkle tops with remaining nuts. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with just a few crumbs.