Banana Walnut Bread + Honey vs. Sugar Talk

I'm sort of a purist when it comes to sweet things. I don't put broccoli in fruit smoothies. I'm not much for sugar-free cakes. And I certainly don't like beans in brownies. Nope. To me, if something is meant to be sweet, let it be. Don't try to make it healthy. That's for the rest of my diet to deal with.

But this recipe changed my perspective - a little bit. I saw it on pinterest and thought a healthy banana bread recipe was worth a try. Sweetened with only applesauce and honey? I could do that.

Then I got to reading the actual ingredients and it called for 3/4 cup honey and 1/2 cup applesauce for sweetener. Okay, the applesauce is cool. But 3/4 cup of honey? That's a lot of honey. Which got me thinking whether this "healthy" recipe was all that healthy? It also reminded me about the common misconception that honey is healthier than white sugar. Sure, honey is made naturally by bee's. Go bee's. Yes, the packaging on most honey products often seems to suggest it's healthy. But the real truth is that honey is sugar and sugar is honey. Our bodies process both foods in nearly the exact same way, so there's no reason to use honey thinking it's a healthier alternative to sugar. Not to mention honey is a pretty pricey item.

The principle I follow regarding sugar is to use as little as possible (unless we're talking about brownies!). Long story short, that's just what I did with this recipe. I increased the unsweetened applesauce and subbed the honey for a very small amount of white sugar. Now heads up, this recipe calls for whole wheat flour, which makes the bread a bit denser than if you use white flour. If you'd rather have a more "light and fluffy" banana bread, try subbing 1 cup white flour for whole wheat.

Prep time.

Plus a little snack for me.

And voila.

I adapted the recipe mentioned above and here's what I came up with:

Banana Walnut Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup applesauce
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Combine first 4 ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix applesauce, bananas, beaten eggs and vanilla. Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients and mix until combined. Pour mixture into lightly greased pan and bake for 45 min.