Look how GOLDEN this lil slice of Truly Golden Spiced Banana Bread is?!
One of the (several) big projects I’ve been pretty quiet about over the past few months is the growing number of private Ayurvedic clients I’ve been seeing in the background (a practice and offering I’ll be expanding in the next few weeks!) All of these incredible individuals have impressive to-do lists; achieving a small handful of first ascents on skis, performing well in the Freeride World Tour this winter, placing higher on the podium in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup next season, balancing their new business and their body while raising two healthy babies, finding a new equilibrium in their work in the action-sport realm. And they all want to know what to eat when they’re riding/hiking/snacking/racing/running/skiing to keep their bellies + beings balanced. This Truly Golden Spiced Banana Bread is my answer.
Besides the facts that this banana bread is an excellent use of those ‘nanners you have in the freezer (or overripening on the countertop,) this bread is special because of the spice blend used to zhoosh it up, the moisture content, and the flexibility of the recipe. Each of these makes it the perfect fuel for pursuits with both high and low outputs and makes it a supercharged choice for a mid-day snack when you’re running ragged too.
I’ll probably keep talking about the virtues of spices until I’m blue in the face. (Which weirdly hasn’t happened yet!) Spices are not just for fun of flavor! Spices help us to digest and assimilate our nutrition better than if we were to eat beautiful foods without it.
A lovely food, like a fat slice of banana bread, is heavy enough to “dampen” our digestive power, depending on the time of day we eat it, the temperature of the body, and the state of our digestion when we start chewing. But when we add spices to this bread, we keep our digestion high, help our bodies burn through it, absorb it and keep going. This allows us to better upload all the nutrition that this little treat has to offer, which (aside from the sheer enjoyment factor) is the reason we’re eating it, right?!
When I say “aim for 20%,” I’m clearly not talking about your output or your ambition. But I am talking about the moisture content in your “sport snax” because this will allow your body to digest it without drinking additional liquid.
Yes, your digestive system needs liquid to digest your food, and when you’re exercising those liquids are prioritized for hydrating your bod, not for digesting. To make sure that your gut doesn’t cramp, or start to turn upside down, eating a snack with moisture content at about 20% is optimal. Snacks like homemade rice balls, soft cookies, dates, and quickbread like this Truly Golden Spiced Banana Bread are the ticket. Dry granola bars, crunchy energy bars, and pretzels or chips eaten without water are not.
If you’re going to be using this banana bread to fuel high-impact efforts like a long, hard trail run where your heart rate will be high and you’ll be asking your muscles to be firing at an aggressive rate, I recommend using all-purpose flour, or a lower-fiber flour in this quickbread, instead of whole grain. The reason? High fiber (like that in whole grain flours) causes the digestive system to prioritize blood flow, and again liquid, to digest. Which doesn’t work very well when you have other high-impact goals! All-purpose flour doesn’t contain this same high fiber content and is digested much more easily (it also contains less nutrition, but you can get this when you stop moving!)
If you’re going to be using this banana bread as an afternoon snack, on a hike, ski mission, fast-pack run, long bike ride, or other pursuits where your heart rate will be lower, then absolutely use whole grain flour.
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