How To Lose Weight with PHC’s “not-so-good” Recipe Series: Banana Bread

There are tons of websites out there pimping great recipes, but what about when you want to cook crap? Well, look no further. PHC presents a series of not-so-good recipes, food that you won’t totally hate, but not good enough that you really enjoy what you’re eating either.

I really like food, and I don’t spend time thinking of recipes that will suck so that I can lose weight. I just end up trying recipes and sometimes they are quite terrible and I make notes not to repeat them. But I also feel guilty about throwing away food, so I eat it anyway. Last week I made some banana bread. I specifically bought over-ripe bananas for this purpose and I still have that banana loaf sitting in my fridge. It looks beautiful, but tastes poor, not terrible, it just doesn’t take really great. I used a low-fat recipe, which had GREAT online reviews. One person said that she would never go back to full fat and that it was the BEST recipe ever. Whatever. It did not live up to my expectations and I will not be making it again. However, it has been useful for determining when I am REALLY hungry and when I am simply just bored and feel like eating indiscriminately. It’s usually the latter.

Here’s the recipe from epicurious.com:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup smashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease 8 1/2×4 1/2×2 1/2-inch pan; dust with flour. Using electric mixer; beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until thick and light, about 5 minutes. Mix in smashed bananas, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt over mixture; beat until just blended. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake bread until golden brown on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Turn bread out onto rack and cool.

Again, to be clear, I do NOT like this recipe and will never repeat it.

Full disclosure: I also added cinnamon, clove, and ginger to my loaf. I don’t know if this made things better or worse.

So how can YOU lose weight with this recipe? Follow these simple steps:

1. Make sure there is no other readily edible food in the house, or just pretend that it’s not available.
2. Make sure that the banana loaf is the major ingredient for your meal. It’s too much to ask to have it three times a day, but twice a day is doable. In the beginning you’ll be able to have a whole piece in reasonable comfort, but by Day Two you’ll be tired of it and no longer find it enjoyable. You’ll find that you get tired of the taste very easily and will only be able to chew and swallow a few bites before stopping.  But even on those few bites, you should now be able to function for a couple of hours, because the only other option is to eat more of the loaf.
3. Make sure you drink enough water to wash down the loaf.

EDIT: If you’re really hungry, like I am now, and having a sugar low and are dizzy and headache-y, you will actually find the loaf somewhat tasty and be able to have multiple bites. In fact I think I will go have another slice now. The improved taste is likely due to impaired judgment in my undernourished state.