For years I’ve had the philosophy to not eat sweets often, but when I wanted them to have the real thing. So I’m not sure what made me decide I wanted to start coming up with some healthy alternatives to sweets.
Anyway, I’ve started being interested in seeing what snacks I could make that satisfied my sweet tooth, but that I felt good about eating (in moderation). I got the base recipe for these No-bake granola bars from other food sensitivity dietitians.
Besides being reasonably a healthy treat, these bars are extremely flexible. I do food sensitivity testing, and these bars can be adapted for the sweeteners, grains and nuts that are best tolerated by an individual.
Rye is one of my best tolerated grains, so I made these 50% oat and 50% rye. You don’t taste the rye in this combination (or even when I cook it as a breakfast food). But if you tolerate oats well, that is an easy grain to use and easily available.
I hope you enjoy these!
No- Bake Oatmeal bars
Heat in saucepan over low heat until well blended:
1/3 cup molasses
½ cup honey
¼ cup coconut oil
1 cup soynut butter (or peanut butter, hazelnut, sunflower butter, tahini)
1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl:
3 cups oatmeal (or blend of rye or other flakes)
½ cup each:
Coconut (preferably unsweetened)
Sesame seeds
Sunflower seeds(or pumpkin seeds)
Pecans (or walnuts, almonds, pistachio, etc)
1 cup dried fruit (like dried cranberries)
Blend together, press into an oiled 9 x 13 in pan and refrigerate. These will keep well in the refrigerator or freezer, but are best cold. They are okay at room temperature – they just don’t hold their shape.
The ingredients are really flexible. This batch came out especially good. The coconut oil is solid at room temperature. It combines with the cocoa powder (and honey) to taste like chocolate! It would probably still be good with a little less honey. I cut back the original recipe here, and it was plenty sweet.
Hi, you say the ingredients in this recipe are very flexible for different food sensitivities. Would it be possible to modify to a level that is compatable with phase I of the elimination diet? It’s pretty restrictive, so I suspect it will take some creativity. Would love to hear what you come up with!
There are multiple elimination diets. If you are referring to LEAP, the food sensitivity testing process, then yes this recipe can be adapted – most of the time. Sometimes I’ve suggested people wait until phase 2. It all depends on what you have to work with in phase one. I no longer do nutrition consulting, but lots of RDs do and you can always get support.