Sometimes healthy muffins can be rather solemn. Their density and blandness makes them a little embarrassing to serve to company. You make them for your kids but they are like a family secret that is not brought out in public.

These muffins, while not exactly frivolous, are light and tasty and definitely company-worthy.

I ran the recipe through CRON-o-meter, a website that allows you to discover and track the nutrient content of any food. If you have a recipe, you can enter all of the ingredients and get a nutrition facts label for whatever serving size you choose. I did this for my blueberry muffin recipe and this was the result. The serving size is 1/12 of the recipe, which unfortunately was rounded down to zero in the label, but the numbers are accurate for one muffin.

I was curious as to how they compared to a blueberry muffin from McDonalds. I found the nutrition information on their website and well, let’s just say that their muffins are not health food. Note that the serving size is 121 g versus my muffins at 84 g, so it is 50% larger, but let’s face it, you’re going to eat the whole thing, right?

CRON-o-meter is useful as a reality check or comparison tool, but I don’t track my daily food intake on it. I’m not a calorie, fat, protein or carb counter so I only use it occasionally out of curiousity. I did run a day’s worth of food through it one time and found that I was meeting recommended values of all nutrients except my sodium was too low, which I don’t think is really possible.

This recipe is modified slightly from Forks Over Knives – The Cookbook. I bought silicone muffin trays when I started eating whole food, plant-based and I immediately regretted not owning them for much longer. They work surprisingly well and I haven’t mangled a single muffin during extraction.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

• 2/3 cup unsweetened plant milk
• 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups (300 g) whole wheat flour (pastry flour will give the lightest results, but I use regular)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce or 1 large apple blended with a small amount of water in a high speed blender
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (I often offset some of the maple syrup with an equal quantity of applesauce so the total applesauce/syrup is still 1 cup, but not less than 1/4 cup syrup)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 375F (190C). Line a 12 cup muffin tin, or have ready silicone muffin trays.
2. In a large measuring cup, use a fork to vigorously mix until frothy the milk, flaxseeds, and vinegar. Set aside.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the centre of the bowl and add the flax mixture, the applesauce and maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients together, then mix the dry into the wet until just moistened. Do not overmix. Fold in the berries.
4. Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full and bake for 30 minutes, or until a knive inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Let the muffins cool for 20 minutes before removing them from the muffin trays.