In my quest for information about gut health, I read a lot of research, which makes its way into every aspect of my life. As a speaker, I hold keynote talks about gut health and it was at one of my events that the founders of Health and Harvest found me.
Health and Harvest import Tigernuts, and no, they are not actually nuts!
Tigernuts are hugely exciting for me, due to their nutritional qualities. You may have read my blog post on resistant starch. Often resistant starch is a little unfriendly to use. Think of green bananas, potato starch powder and cooked then cooled legumes.
Tigernuts are user friendly tubers, a type of root vegetable that can be eaten whole, soaked to make Spanish style horchata or ground to make flour. They are gluten free and contain a bucket load of fibre along with the Superfood of all Superfoods, resistant starch. Resistant starch is a kind of prebiotic, which helps to keep your probiotics happy and well fed.
It also turns out that Tigernuts are about as Paleo as Paleo can get, and are a true evolutionary food with Oxford Uni discovering they played a key nutritional role in our evolution. See research here >>
When you chew a Tigernut, take your time and chew well. The more you chew, the more the natural sugars are released and the flavour is part coconut, part chestnut. Per 100g of Tigernuts have 400mg resistant starch, 5.9mg iron, 23.5g fibre and 915mg of heart healthy potassium.
So, I went ahead and made some mini banana and Goji berry muffins for Sophia, using Tigernut flour. She is brutally honest with me when it comes to food so she is the ultimate recipe tester! Thankfully, these little beauties passed with flying colours!
Banana & Goji Berry Muffins
Ingredients
- 1.5cups tigernut flour
- 3 bananas
- 1tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp. cream of tartar
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 cup soaked Goji berries
Instructions
Blend egg and banana in a blender.
Add all dry ingredients..
Blend until fluffy and creamy, add Goji berries, then spoon into a silicone mini muffin tray. Best to spray it with olive oil to avoid the muffins sticking.
Cook at 180degrees C for 25 minutes, allow to cool then store in between layers of baking paper in an airtight container. These little babies freeze well so make up a batch for instant snacks.
