No-Sugar Energy Bars: Summary, Collected Links and Specific Comments

No-Sugar Energy Bars - Summary, Collected Links and Specific Comments

How's everyone doing with this end-of-week? I hope I haven't been too much of a downer this week - it's been a tough one! 

I had my first two mercury fillings out on Friday: the dentist was awesome and I feel very good about it, but obviously it's a pretty exhausting thing to go through, and then I tweaked my vitamin C IV at the naturopath's and it hurt more than it needed to… It's quite an adventure!

Today, I wanted to provide a post with links to all the posts that I've made about no-sugar energy bars, so that you could get at all of them in one go. I also wanted to make a few specific comments about ingredients.

The naturopath has told me that I should be eating 1/2 a cup of coconut oil a day!!! I know he's right, especially in the heavy-metals-detoxing situation, but it's hard for me to do. So I'm probably going to be trying to eat more of the 'fudge' (the recipe for which I'll link here too: I made my second batch of it with mostly coconut oil and just a little cacao butter instead of equal amounts of each) instead of energy bars.

Here are all the links, then:

Part 1 Preliminary

Part 2 Palette of Ingredients - first recipe

Part 3 Intermission - 'Palate' Considerations

Part 4 - My Magic Ingredient - recipe

Part 5 - My Special Technique

My Celebratory Fudge

And here are a few specific thoughts about ingredients and techniques:

Remember - basic ingredients are nuts and seeds (including shredded coconut), 'chia sweet,' coconut oil and sometimes cacao butter, protein powders and nut milk pulps, superfoods, spices, high quality salt.

When you use hemp protein/fiber powder in a recipe, you will want to use more spice than usual: for some reason, this ingredient can create a very bland-tasting end product if you don't up the spices. The same goes for flaxseed or if you happen to use psyllium - but it seems to go for the hemp more than anything else. 

I'm not sure why this is, since if you use whole hemp seeds you have to be careful the opposite way: they have such a strong flavor, you have to balance it carefully. Coconut complements that hemp flavor very well, and lemon zest, cayenne and cinnamon are ok, but cardamom and rose water and mint - some of my very favorites - don't go well with hemp.

Nut milk pulp is a great ingredient for extending, and making things that are not too rich. Make sure it's fully dry before you use it in an energy bar. You can crumble it with your hands to make sure it's not too clumped: it's not really necessary to sift or vitamix it for this purpose so long as you mix it in well.

Play with the thickness of the 'chia sweet:' generally, thick is good (remember, it's replacing honey/agave/date paste-type textures). Also, if the liquid part of the chia gel includes a flavoring (like an herbal tea) besides the stevia, make sure that it's a strong infusion to ensure that the flavor comes out.

Pressing is a very good technique for enhancing the texture of the bar. But unless you keep them in the freezer, my bottom line is that it's probably advantageous to dry them a little if you need them to last for a long time, take them camping, etc.

Have fun and enjoy!