Yesterday I tried a new recipe that had caught my interest. A while ago, I bought a bag of cashew meal at Trader Joe’s. This recipe was a “paleo” recipe ( for Paleo Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins,) so it called for almond flour as its main ingredient. I knew I could substitute the cashew meal. I ran them through the recipe calculator, and they came out to 260 calories each (I made 6 large muffins.) A bit higher than I like for my breakfast, but not out of range. The weird thing was, they were “paleo” but they only had 7 grams of protein, and 33 grams of carbs! Fats were 13 grams and fiber came in at 3.5 grams.
It was a moist, tasty muffin.
But then I thought about my recipe for “Very Light Banana Muffins.” Honestly, I like it better. I knew they were 135 calories each. But I didn’t know the stats, so I ran that recipe through the recipe calculator–they have 7.8 grams of protein and only 18 grams of carbs. Fats are 4 grams, and there are 2.4 grams of fiber.
This kind of thing is just interesting to me. I know other people would prefer the first muffin, probably because of the higher fat content. But over the years, my tastes have changed, at least a little bit. And as I learned so long ago at Weight Watchers, even the little changes make a difference.
debby weighs in 
You are right about tastes changing, or adapting, I guess. And it’s all what we’re willing to accept, in order to lose and/or maintain weight. For me, I prefer to have lower fat most of the time, with a splurge on occasion. It helps to balance everything out a little better.
I love it that you are so willing to try new things. I get stuck on the same old stuff because 1)new recipes do not usually go well for me and 2) I’m too busy/lazy to try new things. Some day I’ll have lots of time to become the kind of cook who put stuff together and actually have it taste good! 🙂
For me, higher or lower fat depends on where that fat is coming from – say oil or butter vs. nuts or avocado. My stomach seems to handle “whole” fats much better than plain old oils.
Also, may I just say that your photo of the Paleo muffin is even better than the original website’s photo? Because it is!
That’s the funny thing about calling muffins paleo. There were no muffins way back then LOL!
Those look delicious, though. Both of them. I would be good with a 260 calorie muffin for brekkie 😀
What do you use for your recipe calculator?
I use calorie count. But I will say that I don’t take it for the gospel truth. They sometimes make mistakes, so I double check suspect calories, either that look too high or too low.