Superfood: Why we love blueberries <3

blueberries (Photo credit: Simply Bike)

We LOVE blueberries. Why? Because they taste delicious. Obviously 🙂

But blueberries are more than simply delicious, they are amazingly good for us to. For this reason we eat blueberries a lot, and usually buy frozen packs and have them in the freezer at all times. When we want some, we simply thaw them out and eat them (or we eat them as a cold dessert).

Why are blueberries so great?

• Apparently, 100 grams of blueberries contains as much antioxidant phytonutrients as five servings of vegetables. Antioxidant phytonutrients are said to help prevent cancer, heart disease, asthma, arthritis, cataracts and Alzheimers.
• Great source of fibre. Fibre helps keep you regular (ahem ahem). This is very important for your general health.
• Blueberries are said to help slow the onset of age-related neurological disease. In other words, they help you keep your marbles.
• Contain polyphenols, which combat the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are released when the body is under stress, for example when doing intensive weight training. Eating foods like blueberries helps combat that, which aids the body’s recovery.
• Free radicals are also said to cause wrinkles, so eating blueberries helps maintain your youthful appearance.
• Blueberries taste delicious but are low in calories.

How do we like our blueberries?

We often have blueberries with porridge, or in blueberry pancakes. Koha also likes it when I throw a few frozen blueberries into her lunch box, which thaw in time for lunch at creche. When blueberries are in season, sometimes we buy punnets and simply scoff them down (they usually don’t last long around here).

Blueberries are also nice in muffins, salads, or sprinkled on yoghurt.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner: Protein Pancakes! (Gluten & Lactose free)

Yum Yum Blueberry Pancakes!

Koha is obsessed with these blueberry pancakes, and if she had her way we’d have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Luckily these pancakes are also very nutritionally dense, and while I wouldn’t recommend them for every meal (way too many egg whites for one day), they are a healthy everyday meal option and can be slipped into the lunch box and eaten cold. This recipe doesn’t have any dairy and, depending on the brand of oats used, are also gluten free. I always laugh when Koha takes these pancakes in her lunch box to creche because they look like they are less healthy than the standard jam sandwiches other children at creche have, but they are actually much healthier. We will post a video of us making these delicious pancakes soon (as I’ve promised Koha we will).

Ingredients: (makes about 4 serves)

– rolled or quick oats, 2 cups
– stevia, 1/4 cup
– baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon
– salt, 1/8th teaspoon
– egg whites, x 6-8 eggs (size dependent) *
– vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon (optional)
– water about 1-1.5 cups, cold or warm but not hot
– blueberries 1 handful 
– canola oil spray

Method:

1: Turn the oats into oat flour by putting them through the blender until fine. Doesn’t need to be perfect, just sorta like flour.

2: Mix all the dry ingredients well.

3: Add in the vanilla & egg whites & mix.

4: Slowly mix in water. You should have a batter about the same as for normal pancake recipes, perhaps slightly thicker

5: Fold the blueberries into this batter. Try not to mix too much because it looks better if you don’t.. otherwise they become blue pancakes instead of white ones with blueberries inside them.

6: Heat frying pan, and lightly spray bottom of pan with canola oil spray.

7: Pour batter into pan. I like to do dollops which are small enough so that the resulting pancake can fit into the toaster.

8: Like with normal pancake recipes, turn when bubbles appear.

9: When cooked remove from pan (when you have made pancakes before you become good at judging this, if you are still unsure of your abilities, the best way is to cook one smaller pancake on one half of the pan, and when it gets bubbles you flip it and pour some more batter on the other half of the pan, when that second one gets bubbles you flip the second one and remove the first one.. and continue that way… at most you burn 1 pancake.)

10: DONE! Either eat immediately, or pop into the fridge and toast them later in the toaster (that’s what my husband will do every morning as I make these babies in bulk), or eat them cold later. You can eat these plain, or add a topping like honey, butter, or peanut butter.

We initially started making these because my husband and I were following a weight training program and diet from www.bodybuilding.com, which required breakfasts of egg whites and oats. This pancake incorporates those main ingredients in an appetizing way. The addition of blueberries (super food!!) packs these pancakes with additional antioxidants, which are really good for maintaining a healthy body and which also support recovery when training or exercising.

Because these protein pancakes do not have any additional protein powders added to them, they are fine for children to have. * To make them even better for children, you should half the number of eggs and use whole eggs instead of just whites, because the yolks of eggs are an excellent source of healthy fat and nutrients which support brain development. You could also try them as waffles by cooking them in a waffle iron, or you could switch the blueberries for something like bananas for a new flavour.