Eating Healthy

I have been reading these books by Michael Pollan and he talks about how unhealthy the American diet is. The main idea of the books is we need to get away from so much of the processed crap we put into our mouths and return to how our great-grandparents ate. He states, "if your great-grandparents wouldn't recoginize it (or the ingredients) as food...don't eat it". It makes sense, if your grandma wanted waffles in the morning, did she throw an egg-o in the toaster? No, she got out of bed and made them...from scratch...and she probably had to walk to the chicken coop to get the eggs!

In an effort to "return to basic ingredients" I have tried to get my family to eat more of the "basics". I do not buy quick rice mixes anymore, I read labels on juice and don't buy ones with corn syrup, and I have been trying to use half whole wheat flour when ever I can sneak it in.

Now I am FULLY aware that for weeks, I have been obsessing over mcdonald's pumpkin pie shakes, which are not "basic"...but we are taking baby steps, here people(...and don't judge my pregnancy cravings.)

Anywho, on Halloween morning I made pumpkin pancakes. I used a recipe I got from the twopeasandtheirpod website. They were good, everyone liked them, especially my niece Madison. They had half whole wheat flour and no one knew! The cinnamon syrup was also good...but even better if you did a little maple with it. Well, I found another recipe on line for pumpkin pancakes which claimed to be SUPER healthy and delicious. Since I was awake at 5 am I whipped them up.

they called for whole wheat flour, I can't do that...Emily can tell everytime. So I did half and half. The recipe went on as usual, but then it called for aguave nectar....dang! i used up the last of my aguave nectar last week. (just kidding...I am not 100% sure what aguave nectar is, let alone if I can find it in Tooele, Utah!) The recipe said I could substitute honey. I had that.

As i was heating up my griddle, I tasted the batter...it was NOT good.
Now, I teach Foods; I know that pancake batter does not and is not supposed to taste good. It's not cake batter, but it should taste like SOMETHING! So I added more honey.

After all the pancakes were cooked, I ate one...WITH LOTS OF SYRUP. (I need to ask Mr. Pollan is this counts in the "back to basics" movement)

Conclusion: the pumpkin pancakes from two peas were way better...and while maybe not as "basic" they are made from scratch and did have some whole wheat.

Maybe it was the lack of aguave nectar?
Probably not.