Many people are drawn to muffins… that fresh baked smell, sweet taste, and convenience of grabbing a snack on the go. However, all muffins are not created equally. Just because they might contain 1/2 cup of oatmeal does not make them healthy. Pursuing Starbucks nutrition facts reveal that some muffins weigh in at almost 500 calories and up to 30 grams of fat (and I find it interesting that they don’t differentiate which type of fat). This, my friends, is no friend to your health.

Furthermore, many muffins are loaded with so much sugar that they are nutritionally equivalent to cake. Personally, if that’s the case, I’d rather just eat cake!! With lots of butter-cream frosting

That being said, I’m always on the lookout for a healthy muffin recipe to bake for myself and the sous chef, who loves eating muffins with his morning coffee. I stumbled across this particular recipe on a blog I sometimes read:

http://carrotsncake.com/2012/03/paleo-pumpkin-walnut-muffins.html

These muffins appealed to me because they are high in protein and fiber, contain a small amount of natural sweetener, and only contain healthy fats.

I’d rename these muffins Pumpkin Protein Muffins, and whipped up a batch yesterday afternoon. This was also my first time baking with almond flour/meal as a substitute for flour, so I was excited to see how that would turn out. As a bonus to those with specific dietary needs, these are gluten-free and very low in carbs.

Making these muffins couldn’t have been easier: everything was thrown into one bowl and mixed together (no chance for the fatal mix-up of ingredient additions as was experienced in the traumatic Starvin’ Guy Chicken Pie incident). I followed the recipe with the exception of adding two tablespoons of ground flax seed, and didn’t put in all the amount of honey called for.

Then put in muffin tins. I chose to use mini-muffins (and yes, those are liners leftover from Christmas…). Ice-cream scoops of various sizes are great kitchen tools to have on hand for scooping cookie dough and muffin batter.

About 25 minutes later, they were ready!

They tasted a lot like pumpkin pie, and I’d definitely make them again. They’re great to have on hand for snacks on the go, and are Nutritional Gatekeeper approved for being a healthy alternative to more typical muffins! (The sous chef also gave his stamp of approval!).

Stay tuned for more recipes later this week with features from this nutritional gatekeeper’s own original nutritional gatekeeper (can anyone guess who that might be?!).