Total Points Blowout - 13th January

I was curious to see which foods had the most points, so I looked at the points manager at weight watchers online and found some surprising figures – and some not so surprising. For example, I wasn't too severely shocked to find that a Double Whopper was 17.5 points.

What did surprise me somewhat was Gloria Jeans banana bread. Now I know banana bread is not as healthy as it sounds and it is actually cake but for one slice of this delicious bread/cake you are looking at a whopping 26.5 points!!!!

My daily points allowance is only 22. What are they putting in this banana bread? A double whopper combo?

Some other shockers included a type of fried chicken fast food called “chooks”. I've done some research and discovered that Chooks is only available in WA. This is good because one serve of Chooks fried chicken hawaiian is 35.5 points, and if you have a large chips and gravy as well that is 33 points. So if I was really hungry and had both I could spend 68.5 points in one meal. Which is more than 3 days worth of points. So it would only work if I actually walked briskly to WA from VIC and then ate the chicken meal and then walked briskly home again – stopping at gloria jeans for a slice of banana bread and an iced chocolate at 16 points and then jogging home.

Phew! I think I'll just have some zero point celery thanks.

Now, I make a really nice banana bread, so after finding out about gloria jeans gastronomical points on it, I wanted to know if mine was as bad.

On the weight watchers online tool there is a recipe builder – this is very handy. I typed in the ingredients and then worked out how many slices I get from that recipe. My recipe makes two loaves of banana bread and they are about 6-8 slices each.

I was happy to learn that my banana bread recipe is only 4 points per slice! So it's still not a food I would eat every day but at least if I do eat some of MY banana bread I can still eat for the rest of the day!

Here is my banana bread recipe for those that want it.

Ingredients

3 medium bananas – mashed

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of rolled oats

2 eggs

1 cup of skim milk

2 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons of golden syrup

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Place Oats, flour, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl

Combine eggs, milk, melted butter and syrup in another bowl

add the egg mixture and the mashed bananas to the flour and mix well.

Pour mixture into loaf tins and bake for 40 mins to an hour.

best served warm.