Protein and fitness bars at home

If you have been following a healthy diet for a long time, then you probably know that the right snack is very important when maintaining a balanced diet. If you have just joined the camp of nutritionists and healthy people, then this information will be very relevant, because it is during snacking that beginners gain extra or empty calories, which prevent them from losing weight.

Diet bars are the perfect nutritional snack. It is prepared quickly and easily, but does not contain harmful additives, sugar or other non-dietary ingredients. We offer the best options for this snack.

Snickers protein bar

Sweet lovers are definitely in luck! After all, even if they adhere to proper nutrition, they can safely include Snickers in their diet! And it’s also healthy and full of protein. So, you will need:

• 20 grams of whole grain flakes.
• 50 grams of dates. You need to get the bones out.
• 35 grams of almonds.
• 1 tablespoon of any protein. You can take it with chocolate flavor.
• 2 tablespoons of natural cocoa without various additives and sugar.
• some water. You need to add a little bit at a time. Usually 7 tablespoons is enough.

This will be the basis of our legendary chocolate bar. We put all this into a blender, add water and beat. Form the resulting mass and place it on the mold.

Now let's make the second peanut layer:

Read also: New Balance sneaker sizes

• 40 grams of peanut butter. It's best to make your own pasta in advance.
• 2 tablespoons of protein.
• 30 grams of roasted peanuts. By the way, you can also use salted peanuts.
• 2 tablespoons of natural cocoa.

Mix everything and spread it in a second layer. You can pour melted dark chocolate on top.

Benefits and harms for losing weight

Beneficial features:

• cereals and nuts included in the product are valuable sources of plant proteins necessary for building muscles;
• cereals are rich in fiber, which gives a feeling of fullness and stimulates digestion, improves the process
• fat breakdown;
• a muesli bar is a good snack, it quickly satisfies hunger and gives strength;
• Whole grains take a long time to digest and leave you feeling full for several hours.

Along with the development of the food industry and changes in the composition of once healthy sweets, the attitude of doctors towards these products has also changed. Today, nutritionists no longer advise relying on store-bought muesli bars, as they can be detrimental to your figure and health.

Possible harm:

• a product containing sugar in the first place provokes a large jump in blood glucose, after which a strong feeling of hunger appears again;
• flavoring additives and sweeteners in the product affect taste buds and awaken appetite;
• the product consists of 15% pure fat due to the addition of palm or sunflower oil to the recipe;
• The product contains a lot of calories; in large quantities, muesli bars can lead to rapid weight gain.

Glazed bars are also harmful to your figure. Frosting adds empty calories with no benefit to the body.

Granola

Granola is a traditional American quick snack. Her recipe differs slightly from the classic one.

The recipe includes:

• rolled oats - half a glass;
• any dried fruits - about the same amount as cereals;
• nuts – 2-3 tablespoons;
• honey – 1-2 tablespoons;
• olive or any other healthy vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons.

Cooking:

1. Dried fruits should be thoroughly washed, doused with boiling water and finely chopped.
2. It is best to grate the nuts on a fine grater so that only their taste is felt in the bar, but not the texture.
3. After slightly heating the honey so that it becomes more liquid, you need to add oil to it and mix thoroughly. All ingredients should be mixed to form a viscous mass.
4. The dough is placed in bar molds or on a sheet of baking paper no more than 2 cm thick, after which it is baked at 180 degrees for half an hour. The resulting pancake should be cut into strips.

DIY Homemade Bars: 15 Homemade Delicious Recipes

Find top-notch tried and tested puff bar recipes on the most creative food site, 1000.menu. Prepare options from different cereals, puffed rice, a variety of seeds and nuts. Add dried berries, fruits, cocoa or chocolate. Combine ingredients with love and limitless imagination!

Crispy, incredibly flavorful bars can and should be prepared at home. This delicacy is not only healthy, but also very easy to prepare. The bars are usually based on oatmeal or rice flakes, muesli, or puffed rice. You can experiment with sprouted buckwheat or wheat. Nuts, dried berries (cherries, cranberries, goji, etc.), fruits, candied fruits, all kinds of seeds can be in any quantity and any combination based on the imagination, tastes and preferences of the cook. You can use maple syrup or agave syrup along with honey.

The five most commonly used ingredients in bar recipes are:

Interesting recipe: 1. Place oatmeal in a deep container. 2. Wash and dry dried fruits. Cut in small pieces. 3. Lightly chop the nuts with a knife. 4. Mix all dry ingredients. 5. Heat the honey until liquid (do not boil!). 6. Add butter and vanilla to honey. Stir until smooth. 7. Combine the dry mass with honey. 8. Knead thoroughly. 9. Line a baking pan with greased parchment. 10. Lay out the mass, distribute evenly, compact. The layer must be at least 2 centimeters. 11. Bake at 180° until beautifully golden brown. 12. Remove from the oven. Cut into strips. 13. Serve with tea, milk, yogurt.

Five of the fastest bar recipes:

Helpful tips: • If you blend raisins, prunes, dried apricots and dates with a blender rather than cutting them with a knife, the bars will be more elastic and will not crumble after baking. • Bars can be formed immediately before baking. • When preparing bars, you can replace butter with olive oil or any vegetable oil.

The benefits of home cooking

Unfortunately, not all bars on supermarket shelves or even in sports nutrition stores can be called healthy. They often contain sugar, which makes the product higher in calories. Unscrupulous manufacturers add dyes and flavors instead of natural ingredients - fruits, nuts, honey.

Homemade bars

Homemade energy bars are the solution. You can see for yourself the quality of the products and the benefits of the finished sweets. This is also convenient when calculating the daily norm of KBJU. Typically, homemade bars are lower in calories compared to store-bought ones.

You can stock up on them for future use. They are easy to store. And this is also a significant budget savings: it is no secret that the cost of many products is inflated due to their popularity at the same time, like oatmeal used in homemade bars, costs a penny.

What it is?

Content

A carbohydrate bar is a finished product that contains a large amount of nutrients. Depending on the purpose, there are bars:

• with a high carbohydrate content for quick recovery after physical activity and, if necessary, gain weight;
• rich in protein, most in demand when building muscle mass and improving muscle definition;
• promoting weight loss and having a slight fat-burning effect, with a high content of vitamins.

If it is impossible to fully provide the body with the necessary substances through nutrition, such a product can replace this need and bring benefits. They are easy to use and prepare at home, without compromising their taste and nutritional characteristics.

This is not only a tasty, but also a healthy alternative to an afternoon snack.

PP oatmeal and dried fruit bars

Here is another delicious recipe that is ideal for proper nutrition:

• 250 grams of dried fruits. We take dried apricots and prunes. Fill with hot water and let sit for 30 minutes.
• 100 grams of nuts. Take almonds and peanuts. Fill it with water and leave for 30 minutes.
• 50 grams of oatmeal.
• 1 banana. It's better if it's a ripe banana.
• 10 grams of natural cocoa without additives or sugar.
• Natural sweetener to suit your taste.

In a blender, mix all ingredients until thick and homogeneous. Place the mixture on a baking sheet (1 cm thick) and place in the oven for 30 minutes. Temperature 180 degrees. Then turn off the oven, but do not take it out, but leave it for another 20 minutes. At the very end, cut into portions.

What components are included?

In the classical sense, muesli bars are compressed whole grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruits in various proportions.

The bars contain:

1. Cereals: oats, rye, barley, wheat, flax, buckwheat, hemp seed, rice, corn. The product recipe may be based on the use of only one cereal crop, for example, oatmeal, or it may contain several different cereals at once.
2. Nuts and seeds: almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.
3. Dried fruits: raisins, prunes, dates, dried apricots, dried pineapples, cranberries. The bars can contain both dried fruits and berries and fresh ones.

The useful components of store-bought products end there. Unfortunately, industrially produced cereal sweets may contain many additives.

Additional Ingredients:

1. Sugar. Often the mass fraction of sugar in the finished product is higher than the proportion of cereals, nuts and seeds combined. Sugar can be hidden under the name molasses, corn syrup, maple syrup, fructose, invert syrup.
2. Wheat flour. The product of milling wheat is not harmful, but it also has nothing in common with a healthy snack.
3. Chemical additives: flavors, sweeteners, dyes, preservatives, emulsifiers, acidity regulators, antioxidants. These components extend the shelf life of the bar and make the taste properties of the product more pronounced.
4. Butter and vegetable oils. The ingredients are rich in fat and greatly increase the calorie content of the product.

Sometimes, to improve the taste of sweets, manufacturers add salt, condensed and powdered milk, and cocoa to the product.

Protein bars for gaining muscle mass

If you want to make a weight gain bar, then it is better to use this recipe:

• 100 grams of protein in any flavor.
• ¼ cup oatmeal. Out of habit, we use whole grains.
• half a cup of any berries.
• 2 ripe bananas.
• 25 grams raisins or goji berries
• 50 ml plain water.

Mix all ingredients in a blender. Place in a pan lined with parchment and place in the oven for 30 minutes. Temperature 160 degrees.

Question answer:

1. Is it possible to eat protein bars when losing weight and on a diet? Can. But at the same time, you must monitor your caloric intake so that it does not exceed your limits.
2. Can you lose weight on protein bars? If you simply include bars in your diet, but at the same time adhere to the same diet, without observing calories and nutrition, then you will not be able to lose weight. Protein bars are just a small part of a healthy weight loss plan.
3. Can you eat protein bars every day? You can, but no more than 1-2 bars per day.
4. Can you gain weight from protein bars? They recover not specifically from any food, but from excess calories. If you exceed your daily calorie intake and eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight anyway.
5. Can pregnant women and breastfeeding take protein bars? Yes. But if you buy a ready-made product, you must make sure that the composition does not contain other additives for athletes that may be harmful to you and your child. It's best to make your own bars.

Advantages and disadvantages

Homemade healthy energy bars have many advantages over mass-produced products:

• high energy value with individual choice of products;
• ease of use and preparation;
• guarantee of the use of high-quality components according to the required characteristics, in accordance with the specific requirements for the product;
• the ability to take into account individual needs, body characteristics, as well as taste preferences;
• absence of preservatives, chemical flavors, sweeteners and dyes;
• the ability to control the preparation and storage process.

Despite all the positive qualities and properties, the bars can cause complaints about their high calorie content and high sugar or fructose content.

They are present in considerable quantities in its popular components:

• chocolate and glaze – contain sugar and sucrose;
• dried fruits, some fresh berries and fruits are rich in fructose.

Types of fitness bars

Based on their nutrient content, bars can be divided into two broad groups: protein and carbohydrate.
You need to be careful with both, nutritionists say. Protein bars. They typically contain an average of 18-21 g of protein (calculated per bar). By leaning on them, you risk going overboard with protein and harming your kidneys. “If a girl weighing 60 kg eats 100 g of cottage cheese for breakfast, has chicken breast with a side dish for lunch, and has low-fat fish for dinner, plus snacks on such a bar twice, then she will almost double the daily protein requirement,” warns Anna Korobkina, a nutritionist. nephrologist at the Israeli Hadassah Hospital. “Research confirms that regular high protein intake (more than 1.8 g/kg per day) for a long time leads to a state of hyperfiltration and nephropathy.”

According to WHO, the safe level of protein intake is 0.83 g/kg. “In Russia they are somewhat more flexible with this and in official recommendations the norm is 0.8-1.2 g/kg, depending on the level of physical activity,” adds Anna Korobkina. — You can use protein bars if you understand that you are not getting enough protein from food (for example, being a vegetarian) or, due to time pressure, you skip one of your meals. In this case, it is justified. But under no circumstances should a sports protein bar be perceived as a substitute for chocolates or other desserts.”

Carbohydrate bars. These are all options with muesli, granola, dried fruits, etc. They often contain too much sugar. “When consuming such bars, you need to monitor your daily carbohydrate balance,” adds Anna Korobkina. - For example, if your breakfast is protein, at lunch you eat both protein and carbohydrates (for example, cod with rice), and for dinner you do not eat carbohydrates, then you can eat a cereal bar as a snack with peace of mind. It is also useful to consume such a bar immediately after aerobic training to restore spent glycogen. However, it is necessary to control the sugar and fructose content in these bars.”

In this sense, homemade bars are a real godsend: you yourself control the composition of the product and the sugar content in it. But do not forget to monitor the serving size - otherwise there is a risk of “overdoing it” with carbohydrates and calories.

Here are some recipes for PP bars and candies that you can make at home.

What are the benefits of cereal bars?

Candy bars became popular back in the 60s of the twentieth century, being synonymous with healthy eating. Modern sweets contain many harmful ingredients: sweeteners, molasses, sweeteners, artificial honey, cheap chocolate and a high content of chemicals.

The bar will not help you lose weight if consumed as a dessert. It should replace a full meal. Cereals contain nutritional components that satiate well and curb cravings for refined sugar. They have a positive effect on digestion, help break down fats, and accelerate carbohydrate metabolism.

Muesli consists of amino acids, vitamins and minerals that are not cooked like porridge. This means complete preservation of useful elements. They also take a long time to digest, which provides a long-lasting feeling of fullness. Homemade cereal bars are especially healthy because they have a pure composition and are free of sugar and chemicals.

Pros of homemade cereal desserts:

• saturates quickly;
• easy to store and carry;
• contain vitamins, amino acids, minerals;
• normalize the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
• can easily replace cakes and pastries;
• have a natural composition.

Crispy snack for gourmets

Craving something fancy? Make healthy National Quinoa bars. Quinoa tastes like brown rice and is good as a side dish and for making porridges. Quinoa contains more protein than other grains and is also high in fiber, complex carbohydrates and folic acid. Quinoa is almost completely absorbed by the body and therefore is very useful for vegetarians, people leading a healthy lifestyle, and children. Boil 200 g of quinoa in slightly salted water and discard in a colander. Next we connect it with 2 tbsp. l. coconut flakes, 2 tsp. flaxseeds and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Dissolve 3 tbsp. l. honey in 200 ml of water, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Pour the resulting syrup over the quinoa, then add the mashed banana, 1 tbsp. l. peanut butter and stir vigorously. Line a ceramic mold with parchment, distribute the plastic mass evenly and place in the oven at 180°C for 25 minutes. When it cools down, cut it into portions. If you wish, you can add candied fruits or nuts to the recipe - the taste of the bars will become even brighter and more interesting.

Basic composition of a homemade energy bar

The main secret of a high-quality homemade energy bar lies in the correctly selected natural ingredients. Oatmeal is often used as the basis for this dessert. To obtain the necessary healthy fats, add nuts - almonds, cashews, pistachios and regular walnuts.

Homemade energy bars

Dried fruits are added for sweetness and variety of taste. Very healthy dates go well with other ingredients. They can also be replaced with natural fresh fruits - banana, apples, pears.

Not all homemade energy bars are baked. To prevent the dish from falling apart, an adhesive material is needed. Most often they are vegetable oils, natural syrups or honey.

For those who want a dessert with extra protein, there are recipes based on protein and cottage cheese.

How to serve a cereal dessert correctly?

Such sweets are served only for breakfast, because... the carbohydrate content is too high for lunch or dinner. It is usually eaten with unsweetened tea, milk or coffee. You can take your morning meal with low-fat kefir. It is better to exclude fatty and high-calorie drinks, since along with the intake of treats, a strong jump in sugar will occur in the body.

A strong rise in blood sugar, after some time, can lead to a loss of mood and strength. Cereal bar is a dessert that can be prepared at home. It can be a healthy alternative to store-bought sweets and also adds variety to your daily diet.

Article design: Ilchenko Oksana

How to make granola bars at home

First decide on the ingredients. For example, you can use fruit puree instead of butter for the base. Then the product turns out airy, delicate in taste, and very aromatic. When planning to make your own muesli bars, a recipe with photos can be quickly found on the Internet. The ingredients must be suitable for your diet. If they do not all coincide with the intended nutritional system, you can change them arbitrarily by checking the calorie content in the table above.

Recipe 1: with strawberries

Compound

• Oatmeal – 250 g.
• Dates, dried apricots - 100 g each.
• Light and dark raisins – 50 g each.
• Sesame – 2 tablespoons.
• Pumpkin and sunflower seeds (hulled) - 4 tablespoons each.
• Honey – 70 g.
• Butter – 60 g.
• Blackberries – 120 g.
• Strawberry – 180 g.
• Medium size apple - 1 piece.

Processing of main components

Cereal bars are prepared quite quickly at home. No pre-processing of ingredients is required.

There are several tricks that will help improve the taste of the treat:

• If the dish is cooked in the oven, the grains can be pre-soaked. Then the finished product will be softer.
• It is better to exclude fresh perishable components, because... The dessert is designed for long-term storage.
• It is better to give preference to dried fruits. They last longer and are beneficial for digestion.

Features of preparing bars in the oven

Delicacies from the oven have a dense consistency and a pronounced taste. But some of the beneficial properties are lost due to heat treatment. To bake the dessert, preheat the oven to 170-180 °C. Bake the mixture for no more than 20 minutes. It is better to place it on parchment paper greased with oil. After baking, it is immediately cut into pieces, since over time the grains harden greatly.

This dessert will last longer than sweets with raw fruit.

Rules for preparing bars without baking

The composition of the raw delicacy is no different from the baked one. But such a product will retain more useful substances. If the composition contains fresh fruit, then the dessert retains its properties for no more than 12 hours. Pack the mixture of cereals and dried fruits tightly into the mold. Place in the refrigerator for 6-12 hours. Cut the formed mass into pieces.

If the dish is being prepared for future use, it is better to use nuts, dried fruits and raw cereals. Then it can be stored for more than 7 days.