In most cases, you may as well eat a Mars Bar as eat a commercial protein bar. They have – as we used to say in high school – a metric butt-ton of fat and sugar. Derek and I used to order PureFit bars from Amazon.com as they seemed to have the best stats we could find: 230 calories, 6g fat, 15g sugar, and 18g protein. But for the two of us that’s around $85 a month of processed protein bar…it all seemed excessive. So I decided to experiment and see how close I could get to the PureFit bars in stats – knowing of course that these were not going to be on the tastier side. Homemade “protein” bar recipes usually have things like chocolate chips and coconut oil and lots of sugar; my opinion is that if I’m going to make and eat something of that sort it will be in cookie or brownie form and that a protein bar’s primary function is to get a large amount of protein into you with a minimum of fuss.

These bars contain around 15g protein, 3.7g fat, 12g sugar, and 189 calories per bar, assuming that you cut one batch into 12 bars and that you use similar ingredients. They are best kept frozen or refrigerated until eaten – due to the large amount of protein powder and the lack of preservatives they can get mushy if left out for a while.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp DEFATTED peanut butter (I used Bettern Peanut Butter)
• 1 ripe banana
• 6 Tbsp agave nectar
• 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 1/8 cup flax seeds
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 4 scoops of protein powder (mine has 25g per scoop)

Mash the banana. Add peanut butter, agave, and all the seeds and mix. Next, incorporate protein powder one scoop at a time, mixing thoroughly between scoops as it’s rather a lot to get in there. Finally, mix in the oats.

Line a rectangular container or baking dish with plastic wrap…try to eyeball a size that will give you 12 bars that are about 1/2 inch thick or so and of the shape you want. Dump your bar mix in and press it onto the container like so:
Put it in the freezer for a few hours to harden, then upend onto a cutting board – tap the container until the sheet of bar slides out – and peel off the wrap. Cut into pieces, wrapping individually for convenience if you like, and store in the freezer or fridge.

They’re not covered in chocolate, but I think they’re alright…sort of like healthy peanut butter banana oatmeal cookies. SORT of.