Low GI & Omega 3 Rich Recipes

Cafe pancakes are a real no-no for low GI and diabetic diets for a number of reasons: processed white flour, high sugar and usually fried in generous amounts of butter and served with syrups. Delicious, but the huge spike in blood sugars may leave you feeling irritable and rotten afterwards if you are diabetic. This (much healthier) pancake recipe is still utterly delicious, simple to prepare, and will leave you feeling satisfied and well brunched, without that unhealthy blood sugar spike!

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 20 mins, Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups plain white flour
• 1/2 cup rye flour or buckwheat flour (those purchased from your local health food store are best)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup skim milk
• 2 ripe mashed bananas
• pinch of grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons bicarb soda
• 2 tablespoons cracked whole wheat (wheatgerm or linseed are also okay, all available in your local health food store)
• 1/2 cup no fat greek yoghurt or light ricotta cheese
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or grape seed oil

Method:

• Place the two types of flour and cracked whole wheat together in a bowl and make a well in the centre with a spoon.
• Add the eggs one at a time and mix with the flour in the centre till smooth each time.
• Add mashed banana and yoghurt or ricotta and continue the same mixing process from the centre outwards.
• Place the cinnamon, nutmeg, bicarb soda and baking powder in a bowl with the glass of milk and mix together well, then as it starts to fizz, pour into the mix and combine gently.
• Stir in olive oil.
• Meanwhile, heat a heavy based non stick fry pan on a low heat.
• When hot, ladle one ladle full (or about 2/3 cup) of mixture onto the pan, tilt the pan to spread into a round shape, and leave cooking on low heat till bubbles from evenly over the entire surface. The bubbles indicate it is ready to turn with a non stick egg-flip. After turning, cook for a further 2-3 minutes until lightly browned and cooked through. Test the first one to make sure it is cooked to the centre, then continue.
• The pancakes themselves are not very sweet, so they are best served with an abundance of chopped fresh fruit – we recommend mandarin segments, pear, apple, strawberries, blueberries, a sprig of mint and a few spoonfuls of natural non fat yoghurt.
• Don’t be tempted to reach for the fake maple or golden syrup bottle — that’s concentrated glucose and will really negate many of the benefits of the other healthy aspects of this recipe. Interestingly, pure maple syrup (the very expensive stuff that’s drawn from the sap of maple trees and imported from Canada) is just on the borderline of being low GI — at 54, it’s one point below the threshold of 55 for the low GI category, so you can get away with pouring some of that on your pancakes — but don’t go overboard. The GI rating for maple syrup was done based on consumption of 25g of maple syrup — which is just a little over one tablespoon. Read more about it here.
• If you need more sweetness than that (as fruit sweetness can be variable depending on the time of year and grower), drizzle one teaspoon of low GI honey (see below) or stir some artificial sweetener like Equal into the yoghurt and sprinkle over the fruit.

With a hot coffee (we’re fans of the smooth-but-expensive Illy coffee) and a glass of sparkling mineral water (we love San Pellegrino) this forms the perfect meal to start off a relaxing weekend with the Saturday paper!

About the Low GI honey: according to Sydney Uni, the type of honey really makes a big difference to the GI. For example, pure yellow box honey can have a GI as low as 35, because it has a lot of fruit sugar (fructose) in it. You can read more in their FAQ about it — scroll down to the heading “Does it matter what flower my honey comes from?” You can also search the Glycemic Index database to see the latest honey GI values.