Raspberry Turmeric Breakfast Muffins

Every day this week, I’ve been up with the sun + out the door for a wee bit of playtime before the heat comes on. I’m pretty content to enjoy slower mornings in the cooler months, to wait for the sun to turn myself on too. I’m following the sun now, too – as it rises earlier, so too do I.

If Ayurveda teaches us anything, it’s that acknowledging seasonal shifts – in our bodies and our lives – is the key to balance (and, thus to health, well-being and performance.) Soaking up cool, spruce-scented mornings, late afternoon dips, more playful pastimes (to counteract the intensity of the heat) and lighter, smarter fuel, suitable for the season (berries! melons! pool-sized salads!  is everything about summer that we love, and also all that ancient wisdom tells us to dive into.

Some of these shifts are more gross, significant, and noticeable – like the need for a second breakfast after a bike ride. Others are more subtle, like the specific ingredients optimal to have in that post-ride snack. These little Raspberry Turmeric Muffins tackle both!

Fueling the fire

I hope that by now it goes without saying that the smartest way to perform at your best – as an athlete or a general overachiever – is to eat when you feel hungry and to replenish after a hard workout with the nutrient you burned. That’s CARBOHYDRATES, with a little bit of protein and fat. You’ve got about a 45-minute window to do this before your body starts going into depletion mode, sacrificing your performance for the next day. We call this the “glycogen window,” the period of time after you finish intense effort when your body prioritizes replenishing glycogen, stored in the muscles. Consider this your reserve tank – the fuel your body uses to ride, run, swim, hike, cook, work…do anything it needs to. And when you burn through it, your body starts doing crazy things like reducing its available energy, reducing your performance, your focus, your dialed-ness.

Having a high-protein snack in this window doesn’t cut it. Your body needs carbohydrates because, like it or not, that’s your body’s primary fuel source. Having a little protein and fat makes this snack stick with you longer, but that’s about it. You’re not building muscle here, you’re not “slimming down.” Starving your body in this window isn’t the right time to cut calories – in fact, by doing so, you’re only likely to encourage your body to hang onto weight (for fear that the next time we run the tank empty, there won’t be enough fuel to replenish.)

SO! Eat within that 45-minute window, stay strong, focused and feel dialed all day (and, in tomorrow’s workout!) Having a little Raspberry Turmeric Muffin is perfect for that!

The tiniest ingredients count

These muffins are – yes – muffins. And they’ve got all the macros I *hope* you’re looking for in a muffin: carbohydrates, protein and a little fat. But these muffins are lighter than grandma’s recipes (and you KNOW I love grandma’s recipes!) The reason is that as the seasons change, our bodies’ digestive strength changes, the things we need from our foods change too. Our bodies are working really hard to keep cool, and that means toning down our digestive fire. We’re very well suited to eat light, bright, fresh foods, but less well equipped to eat heavier, stickier, more substantial meals. Eating a fat slice of cake made with eggs, butter and sugar in the summer isn’t the greatest way to treat yourself. But having a light, cooling bowl of ice cream is a great idea.

These muffins are the breakfast and are about as light + fresh as a baked good can get. The ingredients are particularly dialed to suit late-spring and early-summer diets, particularly for those of us that are still super active. Why? Because I’ve woven in a few sweet, bitter and astringent flavored ingredients that help our cells to say supple, our bodies to stay nourished, while keeping inflammation down (even in the hottest season,) digestion high, and absorption of nutrients (for all of our playful activities) at a max.

It can take a good bit of study to learn how to look at a grocery store shelf and figure out which ingredients are tuned to which seasons – after all, we have anything we can dream up available to us in a modern grocery store (but that doesn’t mean that our bodies want all that stuff!) But, I hope that by sharing the bioenergetic properties of the ingredients I used here, you’ll start to notice their qualities, and understand how they balance the qualities of the season, and thusly our bodies in a delicious way.

Here’s what’s in these goodies!

• Rolled oats: remember getting poison ivy as a little kid and having to take an oatmeal bath? The oats were soothing to even the itchiest and hot rashes on the outside, and they do the same for our bodies inside. Oats are soothing, cooling and reduce inflammation in the body as a whole, and that’s very helpful in this hottest season.
• Buckwheat flour: instead of using whole grain wheat flour, whose stickier, heartier grains are helpful for our bodies during cooler seasons, I chose to use buckwheat flour which has completely different properties. Buckwheat has astringent, bitter, and pungent qualities, all of which help tone our cells, reduce inflammation and keep our systems warm and functioning well without asking our bodies to work too hard to digest (like wheat.) In other seasons, wheat is wonderful. In summer, buckwheat is better.
• Turmeric: we’ve all heard the praises of turmeric. Yes, it reduces inflammation but did you know that those anti-inflammatory properties are activated (made bioavailable) when turmeric is warmed in fat? Taking a supplement of turmeric isn’t the same, cook with your turmeric for maximum benefits!
• Walnuts: Walnuts are used in Ayurvedic medicine to reinvigorate the weak, heal blood impurities, bolster strength, improve brain function and build vitality. They add a punch of protein here as well as a little bit of texture to the muffins without being too heating, heavy, or unctuous.
• Cardamom: sweet, mysterious cardamom is an often overlooked spice with superhero properties. Cardamom is sweet and cooling, which is again – so critical – during this time of year.
• Coconut oil: there are lots of oils you can choose to bake with, but they are not at all created equally. Different oils have different properties – just like different people have different personalities. The personalities and properties of oils are determined by their source, which indicates their smoke points (or the points at which the oils start to denature and change into compounds that are truly unhelpful for the body.) In comparison to other cooking oil options, coconut oil imparts a lovely flavor, has a high smoke point, and is cooling just like its parent source the coconut. Summer is a season when we want to use fewer oils because they’re challenging to digest, but for the times when we do want an oil – for example when baking and desiring a tender product, coconut is a good choice.
• Applesauce: easy-to-digest cooked applesauce is one of the sources of our sweetener here (notice that there isn’t any sugar or sweetener in this recipe!) Full of fiber, which helps these muffins to burn slowly and powerfully, the addition of this ingredient also helps us to avoid using eggs, butter, or milk, all of which are smart to reduce in our diets during this time of year.
• Dates: dates are recognized in Ayurvedic medicine as being an ultimate superfood, a builder of “Ojas” or our deep vitality, and they’re a wonderful source of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that we can’t find in other fruits or sweeteners, actually supporting the microbiome in a critical (rather than detrimental) way. They serve to add a tiny bit of sweetness here and allow the recipe to be refined sugar-free. 
• Raspberries: because it’s the time! (or, almost time!) I use frozen raspberries here, stored after last summer’s bumper crop but if raspberries are popping on the bushes for you now, use them up! Raspberries are slightly tart, easy to digest, and a lovely compliment to the brightness of turmeric. This ingredient makes our muffins full of flavor and highly enjoyable to eat.
• Flaxseed: objectively, flaxseed is used instead of eggs here because eggs are heavy, oily, and more challenging to digest, but not necessarily because eating baked goods with eggs is “less good” for our bodies. Flax seed is also a wonderful source of omega-3s AND flax does an exceptional job of lubricating the digestive tract, drawing out toxins, and eliminating wastes that our bodies are making double-time (as we’re moving double-time through the summer!)