Cooking with lupins does that a little bit of getting used to. But I have two small kids (both under 18 months old) and it has been a fairly easy swap.
My biggest tip: keep cooking your normal, everyday food – especially if you have kids. It can take 15 tries for a child to like a new food, so stick to what you would normally cook and just use the lupins as a substitute. If you’re nervous at first, just incorporate a little bit at a time into your meals. For example, if you have a staple rice dish that everyone loves, just replace half of the rice with the lupin kibble. That way, the kids (and lets face it, a bloke too) won’t ask “do we eat this?”
My tips (so far):
- It DOES keep you fuller for longer. You need to adjust your portion size if you are eating lupins, otherwise you will be overeating. I used to smash out the bliss balls – now I literally have one bliss ball, a piece of fruit and a cup of coffee: morning tea done!
- When baking and using the flour, I’ve generally found that you need to just about third the flour content. For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of plain flour, try 1/3 cup lupin flour with 2/3 cup of plain flour.
- If you are baking with fruit, you can usually include more lupin flour.
- Lupin kibble really DOES replace rice!