Food trends come and go, but lately the "trend" of healthier eating seems to be here to stay.

Trans fats have been banned and it seems every major brand is starting to develop lower sugar, lower fat and lower sodium varieties of all of their classic products.

But some of these "healthy" convenience foods have even more questionable ingredients than their originals. Artificial sugars are often used to replace the high caloric natural sweeteners, and we still don't really know the health effects of these mystery sweeteners.

So my solution often comes in the form of vegan baking.

Vegan baking omits all animal products from the mix which results in a much healthier final product. And with the lack of high caloric butter and eggs, it allows for some wiggle room in the sweetener department. Meaning you can actually stick with all natural ingredients ... ingredients that you can pronounce.

And it doesn't hurt that these Chocolate Muffins are sweet and decadent, even without the added fat. But I should warn you: after whipping these muffins up, you may find that they disappear as soon as you take them out of the oven.

Enjoy!

Ingredients: Makes 10 muffins

• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup plain soy milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (omit chips for a stricter vegan recipe, since they do contain traces of milk)

Preparation:

Mix flour, baking powder and cocoa in a large bowl and set aside. Mash up the bananas in a small bowl and heat them in the microwave for 20 seconds. Add the banana, sugar, soy milk, canola oil & vanilla. Mix until well incorporated. Finally, sprinkle in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into muffin pans and bake for 18 minutes at 350.