Need help with Protein Bar recipe.

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awandell
awandell Posts: 62
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all. I'm trying to make my own protein bars, and I'm having a little trouble with it. Hopefully someone can help me out here. I'm using this recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Trail-Bars/Detail.aspx as a baseline recipe, but I'm also trying to make some exchanges. I would like to see if I could substitute the peanut butter out of the recipe (for lowering fat content), so I've tried coconut oil flavored with PB2 powder. Although it makes bars, they're not holding together as well as the peanut butter, even after overnight refrigeration. Ideally, I'd like these to be able to travel well. I'm already using a chocolate protein powder, so I don't want to add a chocolate coating to cover it and hold it together (calories and carbs), but I'm a little baffled as to what I can do here. After looking at the nutritional info on the peanut butter versus the coconut oil, the coconut oil is actually higher in calories/fat than the peanut butter, which is surprising too! Almond butter is too expensive for this recipe as I would use an entire jar at a time. Also, I heard somewhere about peanut butter potentially containing "aflatoxin, a mold directly linked to liver cancer", so ultimately peanut butter might be a bad idea for this type of staple. So, what other beneficial food could I use to bind this puppy together. I'm just trying to come up with a delicious staple bar recipe that I can memorize and whip up weekly for our family. Thanks ahead of time for the brainstorming help!

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  • HappyElizabeth
    HappyElizabeth Posts: 231 Member
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    I use dates to bind my protein bars. Don't know if that would work for your recipe, but it works for me. They are a little "carby", but they're very yummy!
  • awandell
    awandell Posts: 62
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    Do you puree them? Are they dried dates?
  • cmeiron
    cmeiron Posts: 1,599 Member
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    check out proteinpow.com :)
  • HappyElizabeth
    HappyElizabeth Posts: 231 Member
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    I use pitted, dried, medjool dates. I just mix them in the food processor with nuts/seeds, protein powder and a bunch of other things, then shape them into little bars and put in the freezer. I wrap them individually in saran wrap. The dates don't really freeze, so I can eat the bars right out of the freezer.
  • RichardAceves
    RichardAceves Posts: 29 Member
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    bump
  • BigGuy47
    BigGuy47 Posts: 1,768 Member
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    Also, I heard somewhere about peanut butter potentially containing "aflatoxin, a mold directly linked to liver cancer", so ultimately peanut butter might be a bad idea for this type of staple.
    I think the risk for this is extremely low unless you're making peanut butter at home using old moldy peanuts.

    I use peanut butter, honey and coconut as binders. A bit carby (I like this word Elizabeth)? Yes. Delicious? Yes.

    You might find some ideas here:
    http://pinterest.com/littledotty/recipes-protein-bars-snack-bars/
  • nwandell
    nwandell Posts: 1 Member
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    Thank you everyone for the wealth of recipes! Sometimes we just need to be pointed in the right direction. I LOVE the protein POW recipe site. We will get a LOT of use out of that, and also the pinterest list of recipes were really helpful too. Thank you!
  • awandell
    awandell Posts: 62
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    Well, now you know who my husband is. Didn't realize he was still logged in this morning. My bad!

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