Why we still eat pancakes

In this episode, Dr. Chad Larson and Nicole demonstrate a metabolically aligned pancake recipe filmed in their home kitchen. The conversation covers the carbohydrate math behind traditional pancakes — roughly 50 to 70 grams of net carbs per stack — and how reformulation drops that to about 1.5 grams per pancake without giving up the experience of pancakes as a meal.

Each ingredient swap carries its own clinical reasoning. Almond flour and flaxseed meal replace wheat flour, with the flaxseed contributing lignans, omega-3 fatty acids, and a soluble-insoluble fiber blend that supports the gut microbiome. Monk fruit and allulose replace sugar without measurably affecting glucose or insulin. Coconut oil supplies medium-chain triglycerides — a fat your mitochondria convert to ketones with very little metabolic friction. Cinnamon contributes to post-prandial glucose regulation.

The broader point of the episode is the distinction between restriction and control. Restriction is what diets do. Control is what food literacy gives you, and it's the basis for the kind of metabolic health that survives a stressful quarter, a holiday week, or the rest of your life.

This episode is part of the ongoing Kitchen Video series. The full video version is available on YouTube.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today we are going to demonstrate how you could still have pancakes without the blood sugar crash. So we're going to make some pancakes today, but let's face it, the traditional pancake is basically just a delivery system for flour and sugar. And frankly, probably the average pancake stack that's made in the more traditional way is probably delivering 50 to 70 net carbs. We're going to show you how to make pancakes that only deliver about 1.5 grams of net carbs. There's going to be a pretty decent amount of protein and then some good healthy fat. So let's get started. We're going to start off with some almond flour. This is about a cup of almond flour. We're going to add that in.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I got it at Trader Joe's. You can get it at Sprouts too, but Trader Joe's.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And then we're going to put in a cup of flaxseed meal.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Sprouts. But you could get this, gosh. Actually, I think even the regular grocery stores have this. So it's Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole Ground Flaxseed Meal. Actually, there was golden flaxseed meal. Do you know what the difference is or I think it's just the actual seed itself. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

I mean, if you're super legit, you'd actually get the flax seeds and then grind them yourselves for every usage. But just as a little pro tip, if you get the flaxseed meal, you definitely want to store it in the refrigerator to keep it nice and fresh. And you want to make sure it kind of stays cool and dark because some of the oils that are in there can get ranted if they if they get hot. So just keep them in the fridge and they'll stay nice and fresh. Okay, so after we put in the cup of almond flour and flaxseed meal, we're going to add in some other dry ingredients. So in here we have a little dash of salt, we have some cinnamon, we have some nutmeg, we have some sweetener, some non-sugar sweetener. So to give the pancakes a sweet taste that you're kind of looking for, but it doesn't spike your glucose, is it's a combo of monk fruit and allulose. And those don't spike your glucose in your insulin, so you're safe.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

And this is uh uh traders doesn't have this that I know of, so just and it only has two ingredients, which per his request, which monk fruit is an allulose.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yes, there you go. Yeah, and then uh we put in a little baking powder. I always get soda and powder mixed up, is it?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, baking powder.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Baking powder. Um, so that's all in here. Uh the non-sugar sweetener, there's about four tablespoons of that, and about a teaspoon of the other things. So we're gonna mix that up a little bit and then put it in with the rest of the dry ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

That's been on for a while.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

No, good.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I want to get that like nice and bubbling in a few minutes. In fact, we'll probably have to turn it up a little bit, maybe not yet.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

And then when we do this meal, it's funny, we've um, I guess maybe we've done it for breakfast sometimes too, but we've often done for dinner. And um we throw in a pan of or um a cookie sheet, we we put we do our bacon in the oven. So we do a thing of bacon too, so that's already in the oven. And um we put a bunch of berries on it too. So I already cut that up earlier today.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah, when it comes to metabolic health, we're always talking about having a protein-forged meal. This particular meal, it's an indulgent meal because it's hey, it's pancakes, but there still is uh, I mean, for a pancake, it's actually pretty high protein. For an actual meal, you're not it's not a high protein meal, but it's pretty decent. In fact, we're about to put in eight eggs. So actually per serving, you're gonna end up with probably six grams of eggs per pancake. So maybe if you have three pancakes, you get about 18 grams of protein. That's decent. I would typically suggest that you have pancakes like this with uh maybe another source of protein, we're making bacon, which is not a huge source of protein, but you can make some you know breakfast sausages or something like that. So we're gonna put in the eggs and mix that around.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

What about the coconut milk? Did you forget that?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

No, it's gonna come in a little bit. Okay. So we kind of mix this up, and depending on what the consistently looks, consistency comes out to be. Sometimes, if it's a little too um kind of liquidy, then we'll put in a little coconut milk, and that'll help to get us just the right consistency.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

This is pretty bubbly and hot.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

It turned down just a little bit. We're almost ready to put the pancakes in there. Okay, so that's all mixed around pretty good with the eggs. That's really nice, kind of liquidy sort of consistency. That's just what you want. And now.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

What's the coconut milk for?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

The coconut milk is just to kind of add in, just if needed. It may not be needed. So, right now we're gonna put in the coconut oil. So, just real quick, about all these different ingredients. So, almond flour, first of all, it's gonna act just like regular flour. I mean, not just like it, but it's really good replacement for regular flour because it's the flour and the sugar that typically goes into pancakes that spikes your glucose and your blood sugar and insulin like crazy. And so we have almond flour for that, it's way lower on the carbohydrate spectrum. Flax seeds are doing some real work here. Flaxseeds have some nice omega-3 fatty acids in it. It's got a cool little fiber called a lignin, and it also has a blend of fibers called soluble and insoluble fibers. So, the soluble fibers we can use in our gut, which is good for general gut health. The insoluble, we can't break that down, but our gut microbes can. And so, this is really good to support our the health and function and balance of our gut microbes. So, yeah, so this is a little thick. So, now we're going to put in a little coconut milk.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

What is what's in the pan? Did you do coconut oil or butter?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

In the pan, we have about a tablespoon of coconut oil and a tablespoon of butter. So now, just to thin it out a little bit, and this is probably what you'd see if you did this. Probably should have mixed that up. Is uh it gets a little thick, so then we just put in about a quarter cup of coconut milk.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

It's unsweetened, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah. And so back to the ingredients. So the flaxseed meal is really doing some real work with the lignins, with the soluble and insoluble fiber. You have some omega-3s in there. Um, and then cinnamon, it's not just really nice from a flavor profile, but you actually have some blood sugar balancing effects of the cinnamon. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I feel like we need a little more um coconut milk.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

I feel like it's thicker than what it used to be.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

It's a little thick. We don't run them when I'm runny, but uh just a little bit. But a little bit more perfect. Sounds good. And then uh we'll start cooking. So it's pretty simple. And like Nicole said earlier, yeah, you can definitely make this for breakfast. Many times I've made sort of a double batch, which I did this time. You can have them for a meal, and then you can put them in the fridge for later and just kind of heat them up.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

They're really good cold, actually.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

It's a nice little kind of on-the-go snack, also. Okay, so we are ready to put them in the pan. Okay, now I'm going to put the batter in the pan. We just use a quarter cup and just scoop it in there like that. And put it in the combo of oil and butter. And by the way, the coconut oil is doing some real work here, also. This is high in fat, but remember, when we're following a low-carb, metabolically healthy lifestyle, we're not afraid of fat, especially the healthy, natural kinds of fat. Coconut oil is a great source of fat, has a nice uh high smoke point if you're gonna cook something pretty high heat. We're doing it as just a good usable fat source. So um, coconut oil has some uh MCT, some medium chain triglycerides. This is a very usable form of fat. It's lumped into the saturated fat category, but don't think of it like bad saturated fats. These are these are medium chain triglycerides, and they're very readily usable and available for your body to make fuel and also to make ketones. And remember, our little mitochondria are like a hybrid engine. You can burn glucose, but you can also burn fat. And the fat that comes from medium chain triglycerides in coconut oil is a very usable form of fat, and the body really loves to convert medium chain triglycerides into ketones. So, somebody who's following a low-carb lifestyle and they're keeping their carbs pretty low, we want to make sure that there's plenty of fat in the diet to be utilized as a fuel source.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Okay, so we can see that the pancakes are starting to bubble a little bit on top, and then we can check them underneath, and they're definitely cooking. I might have waited a little long. Let's flip them. Hey! Miles on cleanup crew. That's gotta be a little hot for her tongue. I uh turn that down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Oh, though I like them crispy looked at though. What about the nut butters that we use? Um, do you want to talk about that really quickly? We we really don't use um syrup on them because that will definitely spike your blood sugar.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

So yeah. If we're trying to have pancakes that are non-traditional, you gotta really look out for your toppings. Obviously, maple syrup and stuff like that is gonna completely defeat the purpose of what we're trying to do here. So we usually like to have like some you know, peanut butter, almond butter on the side. We put some nice berries on top of it, and and that gives you kind of a nice sweet thing. Um, but also we have that uh, you know, monk fruit um and allulose inside the pancake as well. So it definitely hits the tongue as sweet. So you definitely have to be careful with topping it with some kind of liquid sugar. All right, let's see if we're done here. First batch is done.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Pan is nice and hot.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I'm gonna add a little berries on top of mine.