Protein Bars

Thursday I happened to stumble across an article online that listed the best and worst protein bars to consume. Well my favorite protein bar of all time is the Clif Bar! I especially love the chocolate chip peanut butter crunch bar! That is the one featured on the far left of my picture here.  Well of course...my favorite protein bar was listed on the WORST list of protein bars.  And this was like a list of top 5 best and worst bars.  Go figure!

Of course I was disappointed, but it does make sense.  They only cost about $1 per bar at Kroger and this is an on going "sale" they have them on.  Not too many really healthy things are that cheap.  The article explained that Clif Bars are designed to give fuel to someone who's participating in very strenuous activity for a long period of time. Example: mountain climbing for 4 hours; running a marathon; etc. They are not for the person who wants to fuel up before getting in an hour workout at the gym.  That would be me! I was eating these bars as pre-workout meals and sometimes as meal replacements if I was traveling.

When I found out I was not eating the Clif Bar appropriately, I decided it was time to start making my own protein bars.  I went online and google'd "homemade protein bars" and I came up with this recipe! I made them tonight and they were delicious!!!

There were a few things I did differently which I read in the comment section that other people did it the same way and they approved so I followed suit! I used chocolate protein powder instead of vanilla or unflavored.  I also used ground flax seed instead of chia seeds because I wanted to use what I had instead of buying something else. I was not able to find grain sweetened chocolate chips, so I just used the Kroger brand and I got the semi-sweetened ones to cut back on sugar as much as I could. I figured it wouldn't hurt to use them since it's only 2 tablespoons.  Everything else was what the recipe actually called for. Oh one more thing, in the beginning of the recipe, it says roast your oats in the oven for 10-15 minutes prior to starting. I wasn't sure of the temperature that the oven should be on since it didn't say, so I already had my oven on 400 degrees so I just roasted them at 400 for 10 minutes.

The corner is missing because I had to take a taste before saying these were good enough to recommend to someone else to make! :)

So now that I have my homemade protein bars, I'm ready to go! They were super easy to make too!!

If you're planning to make them, let me know how you like them!!