I'm lazy as hell with cooking, but I also try to be healthy. Finding pre-made, healthy things for a reasonable price is pretty well impossible, so my attitude has been to find simple things to cook, usually in bulk. This is more of a base than a strict recipe, so you can adjust to fit your needs (dietary restrictions, preferences, etc):
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2 cups oats
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1 cup peanut butter
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3-5 bananas
Mash up the bananas, mix the peanutbutter in, and then add the oats and stir until everything is evenly distributed. At this point, you have two options: throw them in the oven, or customize the recipe. If you want to cook it now, throw it in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit. If you choose this route, you'll be looking at roughly this total nutritional content divided by your preferred number of servings.
If you want to play with the recipe, there's plenty to be done. Cut down to 1.5 cup of oats, increase to 1.5 cups of PB, and 5-6 bananas, and add 1 cup of each wheat/oat bran and/or wheat germ for easy and convenient sources of fibre, protein, omega fatty acids, and a truckload of micronutrients. Looking for something sweet? Add in 1 cup of chocolate chips and the end result will taste like reese's peanutbutter cups. Dates, fruits, you can add just about anything you want - just play around with the ratios until you get it right. When you're done, just follow the cooking instructions from earlier - 30 minutes at 350F.
This is both cheaper, healthier, and (in my opinion) tastier than any energy/breakfast bar you'll find for sale.
Curious about the nutritional value? Here's a rough idea using estimates from wolfram alpha of a recipe that includes wheat germ and wheat bran. Divide into the number of bars desired (I usually go for 9 or 12) to get the values per serving.
And what about pricing? In Canada, the bag of oats, wheat bran, and wheat germ are about $4 each for 650g-1kg bags and will last long enough to make this recipe 4-8 times. 6 bananas is about $3, and you can find 700g jars of natural, unsweetened peanut butter at the dollarama for $2.50 or so. Some back-of-the-envelope math puts that at about $5.16 per baking session, or $0.57 per bar if you make 9 servings (which would each have roughly 420 calories, 9g of fiber, and 17g of protein).
Finally, what about time? Well, you've already seen this is a pretty simple recipe. Preparing everything takes under 30 minutes, and with another 30 minutes spent actually cooking it, this can be done start-to-cleanup in under 90 minutes with a measuring cup, large bowl and a baking pan.
This isn't anything ground-breaking, just a simple idea that will hopefully help y'all be healthier on a budget.
March 23, 2018 at 10:19PM
