Pro Metabolic Cornbread

Name: Pro Metabolic Cornbread
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 16 min
Ingredients: ¾ cup masa harina; ¼ cup sprouted whole wheat flour; ½ tsp baking powder; ⅛ tsp baking soda; ¼ tsp fine sea salt; 1 egg (large); ½ cup whole milk (add about one tablespoon extra milk for especially moist cornbread); 2 tbsp melted butter or coconut oil; 2 tbsp sour cream; 3 tbsp honey; ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)

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Looking for an easy, tasty pro metabolic cornbread recipe that will fit your macros? On a Ray Peat diet and dreaming of cornbread but don’t know what to do cause all those other sour-cream heavy recipes have way too much fat?

If so, this Ray Peat inspired pro metabolic cornbread is the gal you’ve been looking for. I’ve painstakingly designed, edited, and streamlined this special edition cornbread recipe to make sure you can feast like it’s high summer in Alabama without even one worry about breaking your macro bank.

With lots of healthy carbs, moderate fat, and absolutely no evil polyunsaturated acids, this cornbread will take you home to Mississippi Heaven without clogging your metabolic motors, guaranteed.

WHAT MAKES THIS CORNBREAD PRO METABOLIC?

EASILY DIGESTIBLE

The easier it is for our digestive system to process and convert foods to energy, the healthier and faster our metabolism.

Contrary to much of what you read even in Ray Peat and pro metabolic circles, it’s my firm belief that grains can be a delicious and even optimal way to support healthy metabolic function as long as they are properly prepared.

The cornmeal in this recipe is nixtamalized, which means it’s treated with lime, and the whole wheat flour is sprouted. Both sprouting and nixtamalization increase the bioavailbility of important nutrients and decrease quantities of plant toxins that impair digestion and absorption.

MODERATE FAT

Eating too much fat can slow down those all-important mitochondrial motors, so its important to keep fat a moderate but not excessive part of your daily intake.

I’ve tweaked this recipe so it has just enough fat per serving (about ten grams) to taste moist and delicious and amazing without tipping you into a metabolic danger zone.

HIGH CARB

Contrary to popular opinion, eating less and exercising more is NOT the way to cultivate a healthy metabolism. It’s like trying to keep your car’s engine healthy by making sure you never give it quite enough gas.

Like an engine, our metabolism runs best when it’s given enough substrate (fat and carbs) to burn as fuel.

Not only are carbs the human body’s number one fuel choice, but they also burn more cleanly than fats over time. In other words, running on carbs creates fewer free radicals in the body and turns down pesky stress hormones that disrupt healthy metabolism.

This cornbread recipe features sweet and scrumptious carbs like honey, cornmeal, and sprouted whole wheat that your metabolic motors are gonna appreciate just as much as your taste buds.

INGREDIENTS & NOTES

CORNMEAL

Thoe cornmeal in this recipe is not just any old cornmeal. I use masa harina specifically (it will say “Masa Harina” on the label) because it is prepared used the traditional process of nixtamalization that Native American peoples used for many centuries to make corn more nutritious and easily digestible.

Not only does nixtamalization break down…., but it also frees up B Vitamin for easier absorption.

For this reason masa is often well tolerated even by those who have difficulty tolerating othr grains.

So be sure to buy masa harina, NOT cornmeal.

SPROUTED WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR

Wheat gets a bad rap in the alternative health and even the pro metabolic community, but after decades of personal experimentation I feel the negative hype is at least partially unfounded.

It’s true that ultra refined, processed, and genetically modified white flour is a food that can cause problems if consumed in excess, especially in the context of a nutrient-poor diet.

That said, organic, non-hybridized wheat that has been properly prepared has occupied a central place in the diets of many of our ancestors for thousands of years. I think it may be something like sheer lunacy to assert that a food eaten by our ancestors, prepared in the way it was by our ancestors, a food that in the context of a well-rounded, traditional diet helped keep them hale and hearty for a lifetime, is somehow now a universal poison.

After cutting out wheat for many years and recently reintroducing it, I can now confidently say a lot of the wheat-phobia is fairly ungrounded at best and just plain BS at worst. Reintroducing wheat has been so, so good for my body and my spirit.

In other words, I am so frickin’ grateful I can eat bread and pizza and pasta again. Praise the Lord I have finally been delivered from the orthorexia that has swept the health-o-sphere in recent decades.

Sprouting helps degrade phytic acid, an antinutrient that reduces mineral absorption. It also activates enzymes, begins breaking down certain starches and proteins, and increases the concentration of certain B vitamins, vitamin C (which is absent in unsprouted grain), and antioxidants. The result is a nutrient-dense flour that many people find much easier to digest.

MILK, SOUR CREAM, AND BUTTER

Dairy is a pro metabolic powerhouse that has also gotten a bad rap in recent years. Full up with seriously important nutrients like calcium, C15 (the newly-sung hero of fatty acids), potassium, and B Vitamins, milk has been a game changer for me personally as I have attempted to re-nourish a system seriously depleted from too many years of overly restricted orthorexic dieting.

So please, ditch your fears of dairy and embrace the delish.

Sour cream is mostly fat with milk sugars removed, so those with lactose intolerance generally tolerate it fairly well. If you struggle with lactose intolerance, you can sub coconut milk for regular whole milk in this recipe 1:1.

Of course, better dairy is better, so buy grassfed if you can to make sure you’re getting as much Vitamin K2 as possible (this crucial nutrient is found in higher levels in grass-fed dairy.)

EGGS

It’s important, if you can, to buy eggs from a reputable source because conventionally raised hens are fed diets of primarily corn and soy, which can result in higher concentrations of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the yolks.

From a pro-metabolic perspective, it’s important to keep polyunsaturated fat intake pretty low (below about 10 grams per day or less) because excessive PUFA consumption can promote oxidative stress and impair metabolic function.

HONEY

As mentioned in one of the sections above, from a pro metabolic standpoint you gotta eat carbs if you want to have a healthy thyroid and metabolism.

And metabolic optimizers would be well-served by imitating the time-honored example of Winnie the Pooh and making honey a regular a delectable part of a well-balanced pro-metabolic diet.

I chose to sweeten this cornbread with honey because studies have confirmed what our ancestors already knew: that honey is not only wildly delicious, but also fabulously medicinal.

Also, I am convicted there are abstruse reasons (far beyond the scope of this humble cornbread recipe) that eating a primarily local diet may be beneficial for metabolic and physiological function. And honey is the easiest sweetener to source locally for most people (unless you happen to live in Maine or Nicaragua).

DIRECTIONS & TIPS

ONE: MIX DRY INGREDIENTS

Pretty self-explanatory. Go do it now.

TWO: WHISK WET INGREDIENTS

Melt the butter or coconut in a saucepan on low heat while mixing the remainder of the wet ingredients in a medium bowl.

Once the fat is melted, whisk into the other wet ingredients until well mixed.

PRO TIP: Add a little extra milk for extra moist cornbread.

THREE: COMBINE

Mix dry ingredients into wet until just mixed.

PRO TIP: Rest the batter for ten to fifteen minutes in order to allow the straches to fully hydrate. This will give you a moister cornbread with a more luxurious mouthfeel.

FOUR: BAKE

Pour the batter into a well greased cast iron skillet and bake for 16-18 minutes.

PRO TIP: You’ll know the cornbread is done when the top is golden brown, the center springs back lightly, and a fork comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs.

FIVE: RELISH

Let cool for about ten minutes before slicing and serving.

Enjoy your oh-so-sweet pro metabolic cornbread with butter, honey, or just by itself in the even sweeter knowledge that carbs are indeed a man’s best friend.

STORAGE

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days.

Or, megabatch, ziploc, and freeze and give yourself the gift of a perpetual cornbread supply for the next three months.

OTHER RECIPES TO SAVOR

Enjoyed this Peaty cornbread recipe? Check out other delectable selections in the cornucopia of our pro metabolic buffet!

Try our tasty french fries if you’re looking for another way to get a side-dish carb boost.

Or, if you want a metabolically balanced snack or breakfast option, try our high protein granola!