You can pretty much go to any grocery store and find a wide variety of bars to suit any dietary consideration! My kids love chia, Epic, and Kind and pressed fruit bars. The bars are great!! They can fill the constantly hungry tummies between meals during growth spurts and they are a perfect choice for eating on the go!
For all of the great bars available, there are also many that contain undesirable ingredients and basically are very similar to a candy bar. Making your own bars at home makes it easy to control ingredients and portion size. It also saves on cost as you do not have to pay for the packaging or marketing that goes into the sale of the bar.
Strategies on when to use bars!
Although bars are great they can be a slippery slope. What I mean is that they are tasty, easy to eat, and don’t require a fork or a spoon so they can easily be eaten instead of the whole food. My strategy on how to use bars is:
Add a bar to a smoothie for the boy's school snack
Include it in a lean lunch that is either fruit or vegetable-heavy for extra energy
Use them as a snack on the weekends between lunch and dinner
Fill little tummies on the way to preschool since they eat breakfast at 7 am and school doesn’t start until 9 am.
When it comes to feeding kids, my goal is always to maximize their nutrient intake and give their bodies the information it needs every day to grow and thrive!! Just think, you can positively talk to your DNA from your creations in the kitchen through nutrients!!
Recipe:
1c pumpkin seeds 1c shredded coconut 1c sunflower seeds 1/4 cup Tricolored quinoa (uncooked, rinsed) 1 c dried apricots 1c dried figs 8 whole eggs
Putting it all together:
Chop the sunflower and pumpkin seeds in the food processor or blender. Add to a large bowl.
Blend the eggs and dried fruit in the blender or food processor and it in the large bowl. Stir in the quinoa and mix all ingredients together.
Spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 350F for 25 min!
Nutrition Data:
Total Servings: 36 Calories: 87 Carbohydrate: 7.3g Sugar: 4g (no added sugar) Protein: 2.9g Fiber: 1.8g Fat: 5.6g
Store the bars in the refrigerator or freeze them on a baking sheet and pop them in a ziplock bag!
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