Complete-Protein Banana Muffins

We all know bananas are sweet and delicious, but did you know that eating a banana with black spots on it very likely increases immunity? A paper published by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Teikyo University in Japan says that as the banana matures, it releases banana juice containing substances similar to "immunopotentiators," which apparently means the juice enhances the property of white blood cells. Here’s a poster a blogger at trainerspace made to explain:

And all this time I’ve been viewing them as a guilty pleasure, given that they are high on the glycemic index.  

Thanks to this news, I have no guilt about releasing into the wild my jackpot banana muffin recipe that I get asked for about once a month. These are whole-grain, vegan and a complete meal, and they taste fantastic with coffee or tea. Everyone loves these muffins -- kids, adults, junk-food eaters, whoever -- and since I make them with a combination of spelt and quinoa flours instead of wheat, they even have less than half the gluten of typical banana muffins.

Why did I not eliminate the gluten altogether? I have another recipe for that, if you have celiac. On the other hand, if you’re just trying to reduce your wheat consumption to feel better, spelt is the old wheat, the wheat people used to eat before transgenic wheat was engineered to have more gluten. 

There have long been different strains of wheat that have more and less gluten. Hard wheat always had more gluten in it than soft wheat, so people would buy flour from hard wheat to make bread or from soft wheat for cakes. 

Yet, in the 1980s, they figured out how to mess with the proteins in wheat and created what is called "transgenic wheat" engineered to have even more gluten, supposedly to better combat hunger in third-world countries by providing more protein.

Most sources say that this transgenic wheat is not grown in the US, nor allowed to be sold here because of cultural resistance. But few people in the health-food world believe it. Additional gluten creates fluffier baked goods, and all you have to do to know that your all-purpose flour from the supermarket has more gluten in it is to just use an old recipe for Snickerdoodles that you made when you were a child pre-1980s. They come out like fluffy dumplings, not like the flat cookies of old, even when using organic wheat flour.

And, is it a coincidence that 18 million Americans have gluten-related disorders today, or that we're constantly hearing that more and more people we know have a gluten sensitivity? I think not! A Mayo Clinic study using frozen blood samples taken from Air Force recruits 50 years ago found that intolerance of wheat gluten is four times more common today than it was in the 1950s.

But to eliminate wheat altogether when you can buy spelt and use that instead, is pointless. After all, whole-grain spelt contains B vitamins that contribute to a feeling of positivity and well-being, is an inexpensive protein, and is just delicious.

This is my version of a banana muffin recipe I found in Amadea Morningstar’s book, The Ayurvedic Cookbook, a great book to learn about Ayurveda and your health. 

These can be made with 100% whole grain spelt flour. But doing it half-and-half with quinoa flour lightens them up a lot, not to mention that quinoa flour is a complete protein, as is the combination of spelt and the nuts.

Scarlet's Complete-Protein Vegan Banana Muffins

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

4 large ripe bananas

1/2 cup sunflower, canola, safflower or grapeseed oil

1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 dates, chopped

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 1/4 cups whole-grain spelt flour

1 1/4 cups quinoa flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease muffin tin for 12 muffins. Mash bananas in a bowl and stir in oil, maple syrup, cardamom and cinnamon, mixing well. Set aside.

In a separate bowl mix together spelt flour, quinoa flour, baking powder and sea salt. Add chopped dates, tossing to coat the date pieces, to keep them from sticking together.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, add chopped walnuts and mix well. Spoon into well-oiled muffin tin, and bake for 30 minutes or until done.