Health bars are a delicious nutrition-packed mini meal
You may never again get anywhere close to the commercial worthless unhealthy health bars perplexingly and inaccurately marketed as healthy and good for you; Made with high fructose corn syrup and soy protein isolates: Healthy? Ugh, I don’t think so! Not enough people are aware of the dangers these two ingredients pose. Please read my blog post on the subject, What Price Protein: Beware of Those Protein Bars!
My Magic Health Bars are loaded with super healthy ingredients:
This places them in an ideally enviable position, both as a healthy dessert and as a healthy small meal: Hence the Magic in their name. The other part of the magic is, well, my Magic Health Bars live up to their healthy name, plus they are fabulous, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free-adaptable, soy-free, crunchy and very moderately sweet. The bars will travel better than their Magic Cookie first cousins (exact same recipe, cookie shapes), compact and snug as they are: the perfect on-the-go food!
Ingredients
- 1 very ripe banana (settle for 2/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce)
- 1/2 cup almond or other nut butter (nut-free: Substitute pumpkin or soy butter)
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds (also called flax meal), mixed with 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups old-fashioned oats
- 2 pouches Levana Nourishments Cocoa Coffee
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- ½ cup coarsely ground almond or other nuts (nut-free: pumpkin or sunflower seeds)
- 1 medium carrot, shredded (about 1 cup)
- 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F
Grease a 11" x 14" cookie sheet with sides.
Mix the first set of ingredients in a bowl, mashing with a fork as you go to incorporate the ingredients evenly and get a smooth mixture.
Mix the second set of ingredients in a second bowl.
Combine both mixtures thoroughly by hand.
Press the final mixture firmly into the cookie sheet. Bake 17 to 20 minutes, until light brown.
While the mixture is still warm, cut it into bars, approximately 1" x 3". You will get about 15 bars. If you like them crunchy, return them to a hot oven with the heat turned off, and let them get crisper.
Allow the bars to cool before storing them in an air-tight glass jar or tin.
Magic Health Bars freeze very well.
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