Homemade PROTEIN BARS

Here you can find some information, how to make a homemade protein bar. It’s really delicious and it’s very easy to make. You can actually keep it in the refrigerator or the freezer and then take it out, when you need it.
Keto vs.

Healthy Keto

When we talk about keto-friendly, all we’re talking about is that product less than 50 grams of carbohydrate. As long as you’re below 50 grams of carbs, you’re good, even if those carbs are sugar.

If it’s less than 50 grams, it’s keto-friendly. Let’s differentiate healthy keto from just keto friendly because some of these keto-friendly products are not safe, because you should really know some of these ingredients that they’re sneaking into these different products.

How to identify if a product is healthy

So, here is an example. We have LILYS crispy rice dark chocolate bar, which says that it is certified gluten free, stevia sweetened, no sugar added. And that sounds pretty good. But the most important thing to do is to look at the ingredients underneath the supplement facts. When you read this, it says that then bar consists of unsweetened chocolate, chicory root, dextrin, which is a synthetic fiber, and then it has erythritol, cocoa butter, organic crispy brown rice. That is not a healthy keto.

Unfortunately, a lot of the stevia products, like Stevia in the raw, for example, has this filler of maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is probably one of the worst ingredients that you can consume, because of how it’s rated on the glycemic index. It is way higher than actual sugar. So it will really spike your blood sugars.

There’s a couple other ingredients to bring your attention to. A lot of these new synthetic fibers or man-made fibers that are not really from food are now being promoted as helping your blood sugars, like the soluble corn fiber aka resistant maltodextrin.

This is really confusing to people because you have the maltodextrin, which is just classified as a carbohydrate, being called a resistant maltodextrin. Basically, they’re changing the chemistry of the carbohydrate being a polysaccharide to a fiber. There’s not a lot of research that you can find on this. It’s a fairly new thing that was created.

The problem is, if you label it as the soluble corn fiber, you don’t even know that it’s resistant maltodextrin. And they also have another one, that’s called tapioca starch or corn starch, which is also resistant maltodextrin. So, they can make maltodextrin on a lot of things, they can make it out of corn, wheat, potato, all sorts of things.

So you should avoid anything with soluble corn fiber, tapioca fiber, maltodextrin, resistant maltodextrin, as well as dextrin and dextrose, and other sugars.

Ideal Protein

Let’s start with the ideal protein. If you read the label, the first ingredient is soy protein isolate. That’s a very processed fractionated protein product with hexane, which is a solvent. It’s just not a natural type of protein.
And they also use maltodextrin, sucralose, which is the type of sugar that they added a chlorine molecule, and there’s a lot of issues with that type of sugar.

They also use modified cornstarch right in the so-called weight loss bar, not to mention synthetic vitamins. So the quality of ingredients is so low, it is definitely not considered healthy keto.

Ideal protein is a program with packaged foods. You can have snacks, so they’re not doing an imminent fasting. So you may lose weight, for sure, but you’re not going to look that healthy. They have these different 4 phases. And phase four is basically a maintenance, where you can start to bring back in these carbohydrates. It is a confusing concept because you’re going to lose weight and then you’re going to go back to your old weights. If people get the weight off, then they’ll just keep it off.

It’s not lose weight to get healthy; it’s get healthy to lose weight. And you can get healthy, if you consume healthy ingredients.

SlimFast

Let’s talk about slim fast. There’s two different types of products that slim fast is
putting out there right now. The regular slim fast products are just loaded with sugar and really poor ingredients, but their keto products also have some bad ingredients.

  1. Tapioca (isomalto-oligosaccharides), which is spiking people’s blood sugars;
  2. soluble corn fiber, which helps the texture of that product;
  3. tapioca starch or corn starch.

Quest

In the quest barks there are the soluble corn fiber, which is resistant maltodextrin, and a sweetener, called sucralose, which is a sugar that has an extra chlorine molecule.

Atkins

The Atkins bars ingredients

  1. polydextrose, which is a sugar, that’s very high in the glycemic index
  2. maltitol as a sweetener; it’s the worst sugar alcohol that you can use; it’s definitely going to spike your blood sugar.

Important information on maltodextrin

The way maltodextrin is classified, is not as a sugar. It’s classified as a total carbohydrate. This is a little loophole that certain companies use, when they say that less than one gram of sugar because the maltodextrin is not classified as sugar. So you’re not going to find it in the sugar amounts.

That also goes with corn syrup. You can have corn syrup and lots of maltodextrin and be less than one gram of sugar, regardless of how much of that is in the product.

How to make protein bars

You’re going to be eating a bowl and you’re going to mix these ingredients together. Then you’re going to form these little bars and then you’re going to put them in the freezer. In the freezer you could also put them in the refrigerator, if the freezer is too solid.

Here’s the recipe

  1. You can use one stick of butter. If you don’t want to use the butter, you can use a half of a cup of either coconut oil or coconut butter.
  2. You’re going to use two tablespoons of a really good sweetener, like xylitol or erythritol. When you look at some of the keto sweeteners, like stevia and the raw, for example, they put a lot of maltodextrin. So, because certain sweeteners, like monk fruit and stevia are super concentrated, super sweet, way more than sugar, a lot of times they’ll add a filler to it. The filler they usually use is either maltodextrin or dextrin.
    So, again, start reading the labels to make sure, that you get the version that doesn’t have these added things in it.
  3. Then you’re going to add some protein. You’re going to add one cup of either coconut flour or whole egg protein powder or whey protein powder.
  4. The next one is nuts. You can use crushed walnuts, peanuts, almonds, whatever nut you want to use.
  5. The last ingredient would be one cup of chocolate chips. You’re going to have to read the ingredients of the chocolate chips.

Those are the five main ingredients, but we’re going to also add some minor ingredients. You’re going to put a pinch of sea salt into this and then also one teaspoon of vanilla extract. You’re going to mix this really well and then you’re going to get a cookie sheet with some wax paper and then start forming these little bars. After that, you’re going to put it right in the freezer within about three or four, or five minutes. Then you can actually take it out. If you don’t put it in the freezer or the refrigerator, it’s going to melt on you because of the butter or the coconut oil.