Ancient Greeks and Romans ate pancakes, sweetened with a drizzle of honey. During Elizabethan times, the pancake was flavoured with spices, rosewater, sherry and apples. Today, the pancake can be eaten with almost any filling, including sweet and savoury options.

Traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday, pancakes are a tasty morsel before the fast of Lent began.

But the pancake needn’t be confined to one day a year. And neither do they need to be drenched in sugar and lemon juice, or stuffed with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
There are healthier options when it comes to pancakes, just as there are with other well-known and well-liked foods, something that healthy eating courses highlight.

Guilt-free Pancakes – Go Bananas!

A healthy diet is a balanced one. Pancakes, in moderation, form an important part of your diet. With most things, adding value with healthy options such as fruit makes a pancake more nutritious and filling, meaning you will be less likely to snack on less-than-healthy stuff.

Ingredients

For this recipe, you will need;

• 1 whole, medium egg
• 2 egg whites
• 275ml skimmed milk
• 110g plain, sifted flour
• 1 medium-sized banana
• 25g shredded coconut

Method

• Mash the banana and add the whole egg, plus two egg whites into it. Stir until it combined and has formed a thick paste.
• Add the milk and flour gradually, beating the whole time. You want a smooth batter, although there may be some lumps of banana.
• Heat a lightly greased frying pan on a medium heat. Pour in enough batter to make a 3 inch pancake disc.
• After a few seconds, flip the pancake. This recipe should make three to four small pancake discs.
• Eat as they are!

You shouldn’t need extra sugar as bananas are sweet but, if you need more sweetness, try the following;

• Drizzle good quality honey over the pancake
• Eat with 0% fromage frais, sweetened with a good quality artificial sweetener
• Add a few chunks of fresh pineapple to each pancake

Bananas have a great mix of potassium, fibre and protein, essential for a healthy diet and body. By adding banana to a pancake mix, you have instantly added nutritional value to an otherwise plain mix of egg, flour and milk.

And by using one egg and two egg whites, the calorie count is kept down too, without completing ditching the nutritional benefits of eggs.

Guilt-free Pancakes – A Savoury Option

Great for a quick, healthy, nutritious lunch, this spinach, mushroom and low-fat cottage cheese is perfect.

Ingredients

For the pancake mix:

• 1 whole, medium egg
• 2 egg whites
• 275ml skimmed milk
• 110g sifted plain flour

Method

• Make up the batter by beating together the eggs and milk, adding the flour a spoonful at a time.
• Leave the batter to rest as you sauté 4 chopped mushrooms over a low heat. As the mushrooms soften, add a good handful of fresh, washed spinach to the pan. Turn off the heat.
• In another frying pan, add a dot of grease and then pour the pancake batter to a disc size of your liking. We made two medium sized pancakes from the recipe. Once cooked on one side, flip onto the other (this takes seconds rather than minutes).
• Lay your pancakes on two plates, share the mushroom and spinach mixture between the two. Dollop low fat cottage cheese across the top layer of spinach and then roll. Cut in half and enjoy!

Why Study Healthy Eating Courses?

There is a growing emphasis being placed on food, our understanding of where it comes from and how we can make our diets healthier.

Britain, like many other developed countries, is gripped in a first world problem: obesity. Being overweight places stress on our bodies, resulting in various medical conditions that the NHS is struggling to cope with. Complications due to type 2 Diabetes, for example, are not uncommon.

Healthy eating courses are for everybody and anybody wishing to find out more about how small changes to their diet can have a positive impact on their health.
With these two pancake recipes as inspiration, you can see just how tasty healthy food can be. Cooking healthy dishes and snacks is also a lot less effort than you think too!

With healthy eating courses you will learn even more about how foods and drink impact on your health, as well as clever ideas and ways of turning the mundane into something delicious – without piling on the pounds or ruining your health!