Flourless Banana Berry Oatmeal Muffins + A “Sweet” Natvia Giveaway!

Hey everyone!

A couple months ago a representative from a brand of natural sweetener called Natvia approached me to see if I wanted to do a product review and promote their upcoming Sugar Free Easter Bake Off contest!

 Natvia is growing in popularity in US. Natvia is an Australian brand that has zero calories, is safe for diabetics, and was recently certified by the Non GMO project. It is also unique in that you can use it in cooking and baking for sugar free/gluten free treats, and it replaces sugar 1 for 1 in most recipes.

Natvia was created for a healthy, natural alternative to artificial sweeteners and sugar. It’s 100% natural—they use stevia combined with the naturally occurring fruit nectar known as erythritol. Stevia is a sweetened plant that’s leaves are 300 times sweeter than sugar and have zero calories.

Benefits of Natvia from their website:

• Clean, sweet taste
• 100% FEWER calories than sugar
• No aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, or fructose
• Tooth-friendly
• Absolutely nothing artificial
• All natural with no bitter aftertaste
• Crafted to complement coffee

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Disclosure: Natvia sent me free samples of their product line in exchange for creating a recipe for them and reviewing their product. They’ll be promoting my blog through their social media outlets. 

 Here’s what I received in the mail:

• Three 7-oz canisters of Natvia for baking
• One box of 80-2g sticks

 I’ve tried several different brands of artificial sweeteners before, such as Splenda, Monk Fruit In The Raw, and Stevia. When I opened the first canister, I noticed right away that the texture of Natvia was very similar to regular sugar—more granulated than other artificial sweeteners. It was more compact, dense, than Splenda or monk fruit.I dipped my finger in to taste, and to my surprise it tasted almost exactly like sugar! It was sweet and melted in your mouth. No after taste, no bitterness.

I’ve been making flourless banana muffins for a while now for breakfast, and I had been sweetening them with Monk Fruit. I decided to switch up my recipe a little and use Natvia instead!The muffins are made with ripe bananas, almond milk, eggs, oatmeal, flax seed, vanilla, frozen mixed berries and Natvia! They turned out great—gluten free, high in fiber, and full of healthy complex carbs! They were pretty tasty and I ate two right when they came out of the oven.I feel that the Natvia helped hold the ingredients together more than the other types of artificial sweeteners I’ve tried before. It really is great for baking. I’ve included the recipe at the bottom of this post!

You can buy Natvia from their Amazon store. 

Natvia is hosting a Sugar Free Easter Bakeoff Contest that launched March 14th!

 The grand prize for the bakeoff is: 

• A Magimix Food Processor (retails for $330)
• Healthy Surprise BIG box (retails $60)
• Full suite of Natvia products to stock their cabinets
• Natvia Recipe book

If you’re interested in entering, go to the Natvia USA Facebook Page.

 For my readers, Natvia has generously offered a fantastic giveaway of their products!

 To enter, log in below with your Facebook information, and click the “+” button for each action, and follow the instructions. You can earn up to 10 points!

If you already follow me on these sites, you still get points! Just enter your username or handle, and click “I follow on Twitter” or “I already like on Facebook”.

Winners will be announced next Sunday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Here’s the recipe for my muffins!

Print

Flourless Banana Berry Oatmeal Muffins

Moist and sweet breakfast muffins full of fiber and omega-3's!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Author Emily @ Zen & Spice

Ingredients

• 2 mashed ripe bananas
• 1 cup vanilla almond milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp Baking powder
• 3 cups Old Fashioned oats
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp ground flax seed
• 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries strawberries, raspberries, blueberries
• 1/2 cup Natvia sweetener

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients together.
3. Spray a muffin pan with liners with non-stick spray.
4. Divide batter into 15 muffin cups.
5. Bake 20-30 minutes, until the muffins are firm to the touch and browned.

Emily Weeks, RDN, LD

Hi! I’m Emily, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and self-taught intuitive chef. I firmly believe that cooking is the simplest and most important step we can take to improve our minds and bodies and build healthier communities. Join me and let’s bring food back to the kitchen!