Did you know that the recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) 2020-2025 recommend that children under 2 years old shouldn’t have any added sugar?

The DGAs come out every 5 years and the 2020-2025 guidelines are the first ones that include recommendations for children 0-2 years old. (I can’t believe it’s taken that long to get “official” recommendation for feeding our babies!)

I’m relieved that the guidelines took a strong stance against added sugar for kids (and adults). Eating too much added sugar is linked to many health conditions including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and dementia. It easily derails our best intentions for a healthy diet and lifestyle because of how it effects our hunger and fullness hormones and because of its addictiveness.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, as we see added sugar creep into our foods, we’re finding younger and younger children being diagnosed with health conditions.

You might be asking yourself: what is an added sugar?

Unlike natural sugars, which are naturally present in foods (i.e., lactose in milk, glucose and fructose in fruit), added sugars are those that are added to food during preparation or processing. Some foods more obviously contain added sugars- cake, cookies, candy, soda. But, added sugars lurk in many unsuspecting foods like salad dressings, crackers, yogurt, bread, spaghetti sauces, ketchup, barbecue sauce, and cereals. Because of this it’s easy to over consume added sugar even when avoiding the more obvious sources.

To make matters worse, there are MANY different names for added sugars, making them difficult to spot and avoid.

Here are some examples of the different added sugars you might see on the ingredient list of a nutrition label:

• Agave

• Brown sugar

• Cane crystals

• Cane sugar

• Corn sweetener

• Corn syrup

• Crystalline fructose

• Date syrup

• Dextrose

• Evaporated cane juice

• Fructose

• Fruit juice concentrates

• Glucose

• High-fructose corn syrup

• Honey

• Invert sugar

• Lactose

• Malt Sugar

• Malt syrup

• Maltose

• Maple syrup

• Molasses

• Raw sugar

• Sucrose

 No need to wonder why it was hard to spot added sugars on nutrition labels! Luckily now the new nutrition labels require added sugars to be listed separately.

It’s important to note that even “healthier” sweeteners like honey and maple syrup are considered added sugars despite having more vitamins and minerals than other sugars.

All this being said, finding delicious recipes for baked goods like muffins and banana breads that don’t have added sugar is much harder than I thought. I search and I search and I search and yet I’m not finding what my family and I need!

So, I’ve had to get creative in the kitchen to make baked goods that we regularly consume without added sugar.

Enter: blender spinach banana muffins.

These muffins are SUCH A HIT. I’ve been making them for my little one since he was about 10 months old and the whole family loves them. They’re filled with greens (don’t worry, you can’t taste the spinach!), bananas, flaxseed, chia seeds, and oats. And, to give them a boost of even more nutrition, you can use Else toddler formula instead of almond milk!

Blender Spinach Banana Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons chia seeds

• 2 cups oats (or 1.5 cups of oat flour)

• ¼ cup ground flaxseed

• 2 teaspoon baking powder

• ½ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ½ cup plant-based milk of your choice (or Else toddler formula)

• 2 cup packed spinach leaves (or greens of choice)

• ¼ cup coconut oil (plus more for greasing the muffin tin)

• 3 ripe bananas

• 1 teaspoon vanilla Extract

Directions

1.     Start by making the chia seed eggs. In a small bowl, combine 2 tbsp chia seeds with 6 tbsp of water (or almond milk). Set aside.

2.     Place 2 cups of oats in the blender and blend until the oats reach the texture of flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

3.     Add the ground flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon to the bowl with the oat flour and stir to combine.

4.     Place the almond milk, spinach, bananas, coconut oil, and vanilla extract into the blender and blend until smooth.

5.     Pour the wet ingredients and the chia seed egg into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Remove any lumps!

6.     Grease the muffin tin with coconut oil and then add about ¼ cup of the muffin batter into each well.

7.     Bake in a 375°F oven for about 20-25 minutes. The muffins are done cooking when a toothpick comes out of them clean.

8.     Let the muffins cool before enjoying!

9.     Store in an airtight container for 4-5 days. These also freeze really well!

I can’t wait to hear what you and your family thinks of this recipe!