Except real food.

Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise, as I hope we’ve proven here at KS over the last two weeks, is not a diet.

It’s not a system that you use for a finite period of time, then stop "dieting" and go back to your previous lifestyle (and likely previous weight).

Real Food Weight Loss is wrapped up in achieving a healthy lifestyle – for life.

There’s no such thing as "The End."

There’s only "The New Normal," or perhaps "The New Weird," as my husband might call it, as he often reminds us when I gripe about others’ bad eating habits, "Remember that we’re the weird ones, dear." (But wouldn’t it be great if we could change the tide of the Standard American Diet so that the "standard" became the "weird" and everyone ate real food?)

The whole series:

• Introduction: Can Real Food Help you Lose Weight?
• 5 Keys to Weight Loss with Real Food
• What About Social Eating?
• Review of Weightless: Making Peace with your Body by Kate Wicker
• High Protein Snacks for After a Workout (or during pregnancy or for people who want to think better)
• 2 NEW Quinoa Bar Recipes:
  • Quinoa Oat Snack Bars
  • Grain-free Quinoa Protein Bars
• Integrating Exercise into Normal Life
• The Complementarity of Men and Women as Applied to Exercise and Nutrition
• What Does it Take to Lower Triglycerides by 75%?

A Few Notes from Readers

This series has really resonated with some people, and I’ve had the most fascinating conversations in comments and via email. There are a few notes and tips and stories that just must be shared:

Mom, The Amazing Human Garbage Disposal

How many of us moms finish what our kids don’t eat? I know I do it, as it pains me to see expensive ingredients going in the trash.

If you’re struggling with weight, or even if you’re already satisfied and not hungry anymore, no matter what your weight, you do not have to be the human garbage disposal. Here’s a well-said comment from a reader on one of last week’s posts:

As for this “don’t waste food” issue; it must be addressed.

You have to change your mindset on this. In the case of extra food, that you don’t need nutritionally or will harm you if you eat it, it’s not your responsibility to not “waste” the food. The raw materials that created that food or “food” item have already been wasted.

By the time it gets to you, it’s just a matter of where you are going to throw it away — into your body or in the trash can. If you are not hungry and don’t need the nutrients in that food item, or worse, if the things in that item are going to harm you, you are “wasting” it by eating it just as much (if not more so) as if you threw it away.

Your body is not a trash can. Don’t ever eat something because “you don’t want to waste it.” It’s already wasted; there’s nothing you can do about it except pick its ultimate location — in your body where it will harm you, or in the trash where it won’t.

No Time to Cook?

Another reader works some long hours and struggles to find time to balance life with cooking real food for herself and her husband. I DO think it’s possible to streamline real food cooking and not rely on convenience foods, and I wanted to share my response with all of you in case it helps anyone else:

[For a weight loss goal, I recommended cutting grains…] I found that since I was making all of our breads anyway, cutting wheat or grains makes life EASIER b/c there’s less to do!

For your meals, what if you have lots of huge pots of soups and stir fries, prep the vegs on your days off (naptime?) and bulk cook meats on the grill and such, then freeze soups so you have some for days when you’re busier (and don’t have to eat the same soup leftovers all week). Cooked meat on a salad with lots of veggies, some cheese, nuts, and homemade dressing makes an amazingly delicious and satisfying meal, and it’s an easy way to reduce carbs from bread or potatoes that often "sideline" with meat-based main dishes. You’ll probably still eat plenty of calories, so it’s not like "diet salad" where you pick at rabbit food and then are hungry again in an hour, but it’s using lettuce as a delivery system for nourishing foods, instead of bread to deliver them.

It might still be exhausting on the big cooking days, but then you’d get some "freebies" where you can pull out a quart jar of soup from the freezer, add a salad, and be satisfied.

Breakfast for dinner and hard-boiled eggs are also quick, easy ways to eat real food, fast.

Don’t Obsess About Weight Loss

One concerned reader sent an email discussing the philosophy of Health at Every Size, and it simply begs to be shared in full:

Although I totally support how you’re encouraging people to get healthier, I’m nervous about your emphasis on weight loss as a measure of health.

Today, you posted a review of a book by a woman who is recovering from an eating disorder. I was relieved to see you do so, and that you acknowledged that side of the weight spectrum, and also encouraged people to get away from an obsession over body image. All of that is fantastic. But you’re still coming pretty close to equating weight loss with improved health, and that’s an incredibly dangerous myth.

To give just a few examples:

1) There is actually quite a bit of debate in the medical community about whether being overweight or obese causes health problems or is merely correlated with it. For example, there’s significant evidence that weight gain is actually one of the earliest symptoms of diabetes, yet it can come several years before the disease is diagnosed. Unfortunately, because of widespread assumptions about weight, people tend to blame the heavy weight instead of looking to it for early detection. (source)

2) Studies have shown that people who eat healthfully, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep at night have the exact same health outcomes, regardless of weight category. Unfortunately, many people try, and then give up, healthy habits because they don’t lose weight when they practice them. Because weight loss is so closely tied to health in our culture, if they don’t see the pounds dropping, they tend to assume that the healthy habits "aren’t working." (source)

3) Study after study has shown that 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back within 5 years. Further, "weight cycling" (significant ups and downs in weight) has been proven to be far, far more dangerous than maintaining a steady weight, even if that weight is "overweight" or "obese." So, even if 5% of people successfully lose weight and keep it off, the 95% of people who regain the weight will be worse off than before. That’s not odds that I’d like to play! (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4)

4) Other studies have shown that of the four weight categories (underweight, "normal" weight, overweight, and obese), "underweight" people actually have by far the worst health outcomes. Even worse than obese. I have no doubt that some of your readers are currently struggling with eating disorders, while others are certainly recovering from them. Most of those people began down that path because of all of our society’s messages about the importance of losing weight and being skinny. While part of that comes from the idea that skinny=attractive=better (and you rightly go after that in your book review – yay you!), some of it comes from the constant stream of messages that are equating "weight loss" with "health."

Are you familiar with the Health at Every Size movement? I feel like it would resonate well with  a lot of your beliefs. It has looked at all the research (and believe me, there’s an enormous amount – I barely touched the tip of the iceberg) and has come to the conclusion that encouraging weight loss is harmful and destructive. Instead, it encourages people to put away the scale and focus on healthy habits, regardless of current weight and with no goals to lose weight in the future. I really encourage you to check it out – maybe start with the book "Health at Every Size: the Surprising Truth About Your Weight" by Linda Bacon? If you have a Kindle, that edition is currently on sale for $1.99, so it’s frugal, too! It’s written by a PhD who’s an expert in nutrition science, but she makes it incredibly accessible and interesting, even for non-scientists.

I just grabbed the book – hopefully I’ll find time to read it using the Cloud Reader that allows me to read Kindle books on my computer. Amazon just sets that up, you don’t have to do anything special if you want the book for cheap and don’t have a Kindle.

Another reader shared her weight loss journey with me, which included a fantastic related note from the author of Wheat Belly, who pointed out that if you look at photos from decades ago, people were thin. and they didn’t "work out" at all, any more than vacuuming and housecleaning. He pins our national expanding waistlines as much on the changing wheat as anything else, but the comparison serves as an important reminder: neither weight loss, nor exercise, nor a number on the scale needs to be a particular goal or new routine in our lives.

What is really important is a healthy lifestyle, eating as well as you can, keeping moving in some way, and taking care of your loved ones by spending quality time with them.

Make sure you feel good, and don’t stress about the scale or even your pants size.

Make Real Food a part of your life, and pat yourself on the back for being a good steward of the body God gave you, no matter what shape it is.

What’s one thing you’ll do today to take good care of your body?

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon and will receive commission if you purchase anything there starting here. See my full disclosure statement here.

Many of you have been curious to get the full story since I began hinting at my husband’s weight loss and lipids numbers back at the first Monday Mission about “Can Real Food Help you Lose Weight?”

It’s been a long time since I shared DH’s numbers online, probably because they haven’t been very pleasant.

The last time I did, he had brought his triglycerides down over 100 points in the first year we had switched to “real food.” He was still 70 points over the highest recommended for good health, however. (See the numbers and what we were doing at the time here.)

My Husband’s Story

In fall 2010, we had been completely grain-free for 6-8 weeks when he had his lipids panel done in November. My husband had completed the entire P90X workout series (in 90 days, that’s 6 days/week of strenuous exercise) at the end of August, so although he had not done a ton of exercising during the immediate two months before the test, he was no stranger to fitness.

The recommendations from the doctor scribbled on the test results included “more exercise!” next to the low HDL, and “lower carbohydrate diet” next to the still-high triglycerides. In the past, doc has recommended both low carb and low fat diets for the trigs, which just screams to me that the medical establishment doesn’t know any more than I do about what will really fix high triglycerides.

When my husband went for a physical in fall 2011, they actually forgot to run the lipid panel on his blood. I’m not kidding. And yes, he fasted for it.

I can see God’s hand in that now, although it was immensely frustrating at the time, because two helpful things came out of it:

1. We’re motivated to look for a natural doctor who will actually care about their patients.

2. Since he still was curious about his numbers, we were able to get the test done at the end of Lent, when he was at his “very best I can do” in both fitness and diet.

What My Husband Did

For Lent, my husband counted calories, keeping himself to 2000-2500 per day. He did this NOT by changing his diet, but by simply reducing the amount of food he ate. We also go grain-free for the first half of Lent and gluten-free for the second half, so his grains/carbs intake was significantly different than your average Joe.

Other than simply avoiding sugary junk, he did not “cut carbs” in particular. Even on a grain-free diet, his carbs still rang in at about 35-45% of his total calories. Most of the carbs came from whole fruits and dried fruit, plus some potatoes and corn (in the form of chips and tortillas for Mexican meals).

In other words, calorie counting was simply a way to eating less food.

Breakfasts were often eggs (3 of them), sometimes with sausage added in, oatmeal a few times a week when we got grains back in (although less than usual, I think), or one of my homemade grain-free pancakes or grain-free pumpkin pancakes (above). He became a bit afraid of my grain-free granola (found in Healthy Snacks to Go, 2nd edition) once we clocked it at 750 calories and 55g of fat per cup!

His snacks were often comprised of nuts, which are very caloric, although he would have a smaller, more conscious serving than what was perhaps his normal casual handful (or two, or three).

Lunch was always one cup of plain, homemade yogurt (whole milk) with frozen fruit, a 2-cup Pyrex bowl of leftovers of some sort, and whole piece of fruit.

I didn’t change a think about how I served dinner: He just didn’t take seconds, unless it was a high veggie meal and he had the headroom in his count.

He avoided adding cheese to his eggs, opting for veggies instead, and he would use half the salad dressing as usual and add mustard (just two little examples). But he did NOT skip salad dressing altogether, nor did we switch to low-fat dairy or products of any kind.

We still drank whole raw milk.

We still used plenty of fat to cook our vegetables.

His total fat intake ranged from 35-45% of his total calories.

Because of the calorie count, he realized he had ultimately “given up” desserts as well, since he simply rarely had calories leftover at the end of the day. He consumed very little if any refined sugar and far less natural sweeteners than usual. He used stevia to sweeten his yogurt and oatmeal.

He also did not drink any soda pop at all, which is a big change. He has decreased his pop drinking habit over the years of being married to me, but he still would have a few a week if I understand correctly (they’re only a quarter at his work, a terrible temptation!).

On the exercise front, he’s been running for a little over a year now and committed to working out 6 days a week again, combining P90X videos with training for a 10K three days a week.

He lost ten pounds in 7 weeks doing this, and then we had his lipids numbers run again a few weeks later. He did lighten up his eating habits, allowing the occasional gluten and not counting calories anymore, but by and large watching his portions now that he has trained himself to be more aware.

Want to See the Numbers?

There was some serious jumping up and down when the envelope was opened.

I nearly made a poster welcoming him home with the triglycerides number!

Notes:

• 2006 was totally a Standard American Diet.
• 2007 included cutting some pop to try to get trigs down and trying to eat more healthy fats, like avocado, to work on HDL. But we didn’t really know what we were doing, and you can see the conventional recommendations for HDL didn’t really work.
• 2008 was at the end of the summer when Leah was born. Three times a week we had meals from someone else, with lots of pasta in there.
• 2009 was the first year we were eating a traditional foods diet, at least somewhat. We were thrilled to see that all the new fats and better fats in our diet had improved the HDL considerably for the first time!
• Note that his actual cholesterol, as well as the “bad” cholesterol levels, have always been within the “normal” acceptable range.

I followed a similar diet in quality although not quantity, eating no refined sugar and the same grains/gluten sacrifice during Lent, but eating whatever else I wanted in plenty large quantities. I managed to shave off about 5 pounds of baby weight, although I do feel I have a bit more to go. That darn sweet tooth…

What was the Key?

Since we were already grain-free and he was pretty active as of 2010′s test, we are left wondering what did the trick:

• Remaining low gluten long term?
• Losing 10 pounds?
• Cutting calories?
• More activity?
• Less sugar?
• All of the above?

Vitamin D

While I’m looking at these documents from the lab tests, it’s worth mentioning that my husband’s Vitamin D levels have been low the past two years. After last year’s result, he made more of an effort to take his fermented cod liver oil regularly, but I’m thinking he needs to take more. In capsule form, there’s just not all that much in each one, so you have to take 4-10 in order to get the recommended 2000 IUs of Vitamin D the doctor wrote on the lab test this year (up from 1000 IUs last year).

I check out the test data from Green Pasture products, and it looks like the FCLO could range from 650 IUs/mL to over 2000 IUs/mL. That’s where I got the number 4-10 capsules, since 2 capsules = 500 mg, and 1/2 teaspoon on the liquid bottle = 2.5 g = 2500 mg = 2.5 mL. Therefore, if I can still do math, 2 capsules would be 0.5 mL. Got all that? I think DH has been taking about 4-6, so hopefully if we increase that to 10 a day (phew!) he can get his D levels up.

Of course, sun exposure is the best way to make Vitamin D in the body, so we’re also trying to get him out of the office midday for a 10-minute walk in shorts and short sleeves, but that can only last a certain number of months here in Michigan!

By the way, unflavored FCLO is on SUPER sale right now, down to $26 from $44. If you can add your own flavoring or just knock it back, this is one of the best deals you’ll see all year! (Some other products are also on sale, although not quite as low.) Shop HERE.

Katie’s Weight Loss Journey?

I’ve never been truly overweight, barring perhaps mid-college when caf food was not kind to me.

But anyone who’s had a child has a weight loss story, even if it’s just, “I nursed off the pounds,” which is pretty much my tale with each of my three pregnancies.

I just tried on my shorts from two summers ago (as I was pregnant last summer), and some of them fit. Not all of them. Do I have a bit more weight to lose? I’d like to tone up my middle, for sure, even though the scale is pretty close to where I’d like to be (within a few pounds of pre-pregnancy weight, but still about 7-8 pounds shy of where I have been since baby number one).

One pair of shorts that is uncomfortably tight, although it would fasten, I know for certain was purchased when I was a waitress the summer after my freshman year of college. I’m pretty sure I weighed what I do now, or maybe even a pound or two more. So you see, weight isn’t everything. I like the idea of not even having a scale like the reader who commented in the real food weight loss keys post.

While I’m talking about pants sizes, I have to vent.

I think it’s demeaning and ultimately harmful for clothing companies to continue to lower their sizing so that people can feel good about themselves because they fit into a certain pants size. My size “6 medium” from the college waitressing job are too tight, yet the few size 4 petite and 4 regular jeans that I bought in January are literally falling off me. I don’t have to unbutton one of them to go to the bathroom! (Handy when baby is fussy, but not ideal for modesty on the backside!! And yes, I should have waited another month or two to shop for jeans, clearly.)

What’s the deal with pants sizes? At this rate, when I’m 60, I’ll be in a size zero and some rather obese people will be strutting around, happily sporting size 8 jeans so they feel better about themselves and the clothing companies’ pockets get lined!

My own goal, getting back to topic, is to get out walking more often (I biked son to school this Wednesday and walked to pick him up, logging a few miles in the process), do some 8-minute ab routines on YouTube with the hubby, and (ahem) get better at sticking to dark chocolate instead of other junk when I need a sweet tooth fix, and focusing on real food for late-night snacking instead of junk. (Yes, even the Kitchen Stewardship lady eats junk.)

I’m going to be reading along with Mandi’s Break the Sugar Habit series at Life Your Way, which will be introduced next week and kicks off formally with a “no sugar” (at all) challenge the first full week of June. She’s pulling in lots of blogger power to help you kick that sugar habit, and I think it’s going to be one to keep an eye on.

For now, the Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series is closing down with one more post, one that will prove why this post perhaps should have been titled “The Kimball Family Stays Healthy” and forget about the “weight loss.”

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: Green Pasture is a KS sponsor and receiving their complementary mention for the month. See my full disclosure statement here.

• flip flops
• mosquitoes
• gardening gloves
• sandbox toys
• popsicles shared around the neighborhood

It’s that last one that concerns me, and I’ve made it my goal to figure out how to avoid being the “uncool” house with no treats.

This means I need to figure out homemade, whole foods, tasty summertime goodies that aren’t too expensive to share generously.

You know…Eat Well, Spend Less.

My kids were more than happy to taste test the first step toward my goal:

Kids Creating Treats for Kids

It’s important to me that my kids help in the kitchen, and although I’m certainly not as organized or patient as Jami of Eat Nourishing, who shared her awesome high expectations for kids’ responsibilities in a real food kitchen, I try to keep them involved and engaged when I can pin them down.

Some of their favorite tools? The loud ones. (i.e. the food processor and blender)

We had a great time whizzing up different juices and fruits to test popsicle flavors (and perhaps an even better time having popsicles for a snack – so that I could figure out which ones were good!).

After testing ice cube sized flavors, we made a few batches of our favorites for Paul’s “kid” birthday party, which was a simple soccer game and treat affair.

I was so glad I got both of them, ages 7 and 3-and-a-half, to participate in the “making” process.

When the kids help, they really get invested in the work.

They’re proud of the food they help create.

They’re excited to eat and to share with others.

Their enthusiasm is contagious.

And they learn about food, cooking terms, and life skills like following directions, taking turns, compromising (everyone can’t do everything), and teamwork.

I even let the 3-year-old take some photos of the work:

Recipe: Homemade Whole Food Popsicles

I love having these popsicles around, because they’re a dessert I can feel good about offering my kids after dinner. We had a bout of antibiotics recently, (blech) and along with taking probiotics, we had a day or two where the child wasn’t allowed to have any refined sugars, so it was nice to still have something fun for dessert. (I wish I had the children’s probiotics from Jack be Natural instead of guessing at how much of our adult form to give…)

The only thing I would have done differently with this project was allow each child to make up their own popsicle, from the ingredients to the proportions. Next time I will, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with! Here are a few of the “winners” we discovered:

Supplies needed:

1. Either purchased popsicle molds or one of the following options to hold the popsicles:

• Bathroom sized Dixie cups and wooden popsicle sticks (available at most craft stores)
• Snack sized (or smaller if you can find them) plastic zippered baggies
• Silicone muffin cups and wooden popsicle sticks
• Ice cube trays and sticks

2. Food processor, blender, or stick blender

3. Freezer with flat space available

Method:

1. Whiz together all the ingredients. A food processor works for coconut milk or pineapple, but stick with a blender for most of the recipes – even bananas if your machine can handle it. My food processor did a bit too much sloshing and splashing, and besides, blenders are much easier for pouring.

2. Pour into chosen containers.

• Baggies will hold about 1/2 cup. You can freeze them entirely flat for a very thin popsicle or roll in half, squeezing the liquid out of one half and making more of a “tube” shape on the other half. Cut off the short end of the baggie to serve, like the popsicles that come in tubes and you squeeze them up to eat.
• Ice cube trays are good for family taste tests.
• Insert sticks either right away if a thick popsicle mixture, or set a timer for an hour and then put sticks in the partially frozen treats so they stay straight.

3. Put in a flat space in the freezer. I like to place any of these options onto a cookie sheet in case of spills and to keep them flat.

Ingredients:

Try making small batches in ice cube trays to taste test, or just jump in and choose one that sounds yummy!

• Tropical: 1 c. orange juice + 1/2 c. canned coconut milk
• Tropical Grape: 1 c. grape juice + 2/3 c. coconut milk + 1/2 c. orange juice
• Add 1 banana, frozen or fresh, to Tropical Grape
• Grape-pineapple: 1/2 cup each canned pineapple with juice, grape juice and coconut milk
• Add half a banana to Grape-pineapple
• Citrus-Strawberry: juice and pulp of one lemon (use a fork to twist the pulp out), 2 Tbs. honey, 2/3 c. water, 1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 c. orange juice

Cook’s Notes:

We also tested a few things that didn’t really work great, such as adding a raw apple with some combinations (too chunky) and a lemonade version that is basically the last option there without the strawberries and orange juice (too hard, like gnawing on an ice cube).

In my opinion, the canned coconut milk makes the consistency really like a popsicle. If you don’t think you like coconut milk, it’s still worth a try, or at least use fruit to make softer popsicles.

Buy orange juice with pulp to at least retain some of the fiber naturally found in fruit. Or, just use an orange.

What Next?

These frozen goodies were definitely made with other kids in mind. We don’t buy or drink grape juice or orange juice (although my kids appreciated the change of pace with our water kefir as we used up the grape juice in a couple batches). I know that fruit juice is not really good for you, but at least there isn’t any white sugar in these recipes. They’re a huge step up from purchased popsicles.

For my own family, I’d like to work on some more “whole foods” versions. I’ll be including:

• yogurt
• raw milk
• maybe yogurt cheese?
• lightly steamed and frozen greens like a green smoothie
• coconut oil?

And of course, whatever the kids come up with…

Other ways my kids help in the kitchen:

• slicing potatoes in food processor – Leah practically does this herself once I’ve scrubbed the potatoes
• making coconut muffins (from Healthy Snacks to Go) – I was teaching Paul to do this recipe completely himself after reading about Shaina’s kids making their own muffins and Jessica being inspired by it…but then we never found the time to get back to it between homework and baseball and playing with the friends in the neighborhood.
• cutting pineapple all together -  I core it, Paul slices, and Leah dices!
• making homemade dressings
• stirring, measuring
• Paul has been making scrambled eggs at the stovetop for a year or two now, and he’s so good at it he thinks eggs are subpar if anyone else prepares them.
• potato salad – by about age two, they both have learned basic knife skills on soft things. Now they could pretty much make potato salad by themselves, too (although we always teamwork it).
• setting the table (we have a dedicated low cupboard for kids’ stuff)
• unloading the dishwasher

What do you love to make with your kids?

Check in with the other ladies of the Eat Well, Spend Less series for much more on kids in the kitchen:

• Amy at Kingdom First Mom
• Carrie at Denver Bargains
• Jessica at Life as MOM
• Aimee at Simple Bites
• Tammy at Tammy’s Recipes
• Mandi at Life Your Way
• Shaina at Food for my Family

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: Jack be Natural is a sponsor of KS this month. See my full disclosure statement here.

Protein shakes, energy bars, and supplements marketed to athletes sometimes feel like the worst offenders in the processed foods world. Between the odd chemicals claiming to boost muscle mass, increase energy, and extend endurance (creatine, anyone?) and the fact that most energy bars use soy protein, ignoring the fact that animal foods are the best source of usable protein available, that’s a whole category I’d like to stay away from.

(Unfermented soy, by the way, is sketchy because it is high in phytoestrogens that may be hormone disrupting, high in inflammatory omega-6 fats, and also incredibly high in phytates, which can hinder mineral absorption from the rest of the good food you eat. It also is simply a product of our century that anyone eats soy regularly without long fermenting it first – think miso, soy sauce. “New” foods in my traditional foods world equal “stay away.”) (top photo source)

We can get plenty of protein, even on the go, with exclusively real, whole foods and no packaged junk. You’ll love the list of high protein foods that readers and I put together for this post, so don’t forget to read all the way to the end for the practical goodies!

This post is sponsored by Radiant Life.

Why Protein After Exercise?

The fitness community does have some research backing up the recommendation to consume adequate protein, especially after a workout.

Consuming protein after working out helps to keep your net protein balance positive (whatever that means) which is necessary for muscle mass increase and to prevent muscle breakdown. This study, which I also don’t have the patience to understand fully, also found that there was no increase in benefit when consuming over 20 grams of protein (for a 190-pound, fit young man). ¹

Therefore, most sources recommend that an athlete should consume between 6-20 grams of protein within an hour after a workout to help with muscle building and recovery. After that time, the muscles will have already begun breaking down in the absence of protein to fuel them.

(photo source)

Throughout the day, it’s important to get enough protein, period, for optimal health and also for athletes to build and maintain muscle. Chad Landers, a certified strength and conditioning coach who also has a diploma in sports nutrition from the International Olympic Committee, contributed to CNN with this formula to determine your protein needs for the day:

• An optimal range of protein intake for an athlete trying to gain muscle is .72-.81 grams per pound per day.
• If your goal is to maintain muscle, the range is .54-.64 grams per pound per day.
• Livestrong says that “Most adults need to consume about 0.4g of protein per 1 lb. of body weight.”
• If overweight, calculate using your goal body weight.
• To calculate your requirements, simply multiply your weight times one of the figures above.

For me, ringing in at about 125 pounds, I would need between 67-100 grams per day to maintain or build muscle mass and a minimum of 50 grams using the Livestrong figure.

Protein in Pregnancy

When I was expecting our first child, we took Bradley birth classes and were instructed to count protein grams, seeking 80-100 grams per day. Building a baby is much like building muscle, apparently!

Protein in pregnancy is vital for baby’s growth, placental health, increasing the blood volume in the mother, and preventing pre-eclampsia or toxemia. ³

Consuming regular protein also may help avoid nausea for the pregnant mom, so this list should be helpful for anyone with child to try to make sure she has protein always available, even when out and about shopping for baby clothes.

Protein for Brain Health

What about the rest of us?

In my stage of life, I’m neither pregnant nor exercising regularly, but clearly I still need to make sure I get adequate protein from whole foods sources. Maybe if I increase it, I will have the neurons to rub together to help me understand all those research studies like I referenced above…

This article by Jordan Rubin, author of The Maker’s Diet, demonstrates the important of protein for general brain health, energy, and even hindering the negative effect of sugar on the system.

What Kind of Protein?

For some reason I guess there’s a trend lately to encourage athletes to drink chocolate milk after a workout for the protein boost.

This may shock you, but I will not be recommending chocolate milk.

We real foodies know that real protein is found best in animal products: red meat, chicken, well-raised fish, raw milk, homemade yogurt, cheese, etc.

Even the CNN expert cited above recommends animal products:

Whey protein is a faster acting protein so it is more effective before and after workouts, but it is important to eat protein from a variety of sources if possible (chicken, fish, lean meat, low fat dairy, beans/legumes, nuts) for optimal performance and health.

Of course, recommending low fat foods and okaying creatine (in his next sentence at the article) don’t sit all that well with me for this “expert”…

Athletes are also told to consume some carbs with their protein:

Sport drinks or foods that deliver high glycemic carbohydrates will stimulate an insulin response from the pancreas. Insulin counteracts cortisol and minimizes protein breakdown.

The combination of insulin and carbohydrate also increases glycogen storage in the muscle, which improves intensity and quality of subsequent training sessions. ²

This is where the chocolate milk recommendation comes in, I suppose. But the straight up white sugar or HFCS found in chocolate milk is simply unnecessary.

WebMD agrees:

Choose protein powders made from whey protein or milk proteins (milk protein contains two types of proteins, both whey and casein). Use them within 30 minutes after exercising to provide needed amino acids to muscles. For weight gain, use a protein drink as an evening snack.

Look for energy bars that contain about 5 grams of protein, with some carbohydrate (preferably with more naturally occurring sugars) and very little fat. Many energy bars are just glorified, expensive candy bars, so remember that “energy” means calories and watch out for high-calorie bars. They are helpful for athletes on the go, so if you can’t eat before a long tennis match, an energy bar can help.

I loved reading that recommendation for energy bars, since two small servings of my homemade quinoa oat protein bars would have 6.4 g protein plus carbs from naturally occurring sugars, and the grain-free quinoa bar recipe with whey powder from Radiant Life top the charts at nearly 12 g protein for the same amount!

Real Food On the Go Protein Sources

Certainly we can grill up a grassfed hamburger or some spicy Alaskan salmon, but what about getting that protein in within an hour after working out? And those pregnant mamas aren’t always near their kitchen to cook. With the help of the KS community on Facebook and Twitter, here’s a total brain dump of everything we could think of that would pack a protein punch, and also be packable itself:

• Homemade beef jerky (13-22g protein for a small piece) 
• 28 g of beef jerky has 13 g protein according to a calorie counter, but I figured if dehydrating foods makes them end up at about 25% of their starting weight/size, take a 3-oz. portion of ground beef the size of a deck of cards, mentally cut 1/4 off of that, and you’ve got a small to average sized chunk of beef jerky. That should have 22g protein if nothing is lost in the making of the jerky by pouring off the fat! Impressive! My homemade jerky uses ground beef, is easy to chew and easy to make – recipe found in Healthy Snacks to Go and as the June thank you video for the GNOWFGLINS eCourse.
  
• Vital Whey protein powder (16 g protein in 1 scoop or 20 g) 
• This is quality whey protein, by the way, from grassfed, GMO-free, chemical-free raw milk. It is not denatured by high temp spray drying like most protein powders, nor is it pumped up with other random ingredients. It’s just whey. My husband has been really enjoying mixing it with raw milk after his P90X and Insanity workouts – he says he missed his protein drinks after we ran out of the “other stuff” and I wouldn’t buy any more. Tastewise, it’s right on par with any protein powder he’s tried and mixes into liquids just fine. It does need to be shaken well or whizzed in a blender to totally mix in though, just like any other whey powder.
• High quality gelatin  (12 g protein in 1 Tbs.) 
• I’m thinking you could add this to any homemade bar, although I haven’t tried it. One Tablespoon of anything should just blend right in, right? 12 g of protein is impressive! This also means that homemade bone broth with good gelatin should be an excellent source of protein, although not quite as easy on the go.
• Green smoothies with yogurt, whole milk, some fruit, and maybe an egg yolk or two – add whey ice cubes for even more protein or the powder above.
• Canned salmon (12 g protein in 1/4 cup, or about one salmon patty, which are great cold with Dijon mustard for dipping)
• Tuna fish (13 g protein in 2 ounces, which is less than half of a small can) I’m wondering the feasibility of dehydrating tuna fish or salmon for travel…
• Note: Check out this article for information on finding tuna in non-BPA lined cans, including Vital Choice (salmon too), Wild Planet, or just go with tuna canned in glass.
• Whole milk – take in a thermos or insulated stainless steel water bottle (8 g protein in 8 ounces/1 cup)
• Whole milk yogurt (8 g protein in 6-8 ounces)
• Next week I’ll share how I’m working on dehydrating yogurt for travel, plus how adding gelatin can not only boost the protein content but also make a thicker product!
• Nuts and seeds (range from 5-9g protein per 1/4 cup serving, with walnuts on the low end and peanuts on the high end) 
• Make trail mix!
• Cheese (7g protein in one ounce – picture a few slices or 1/8 of a regular 8-ounce package)
• A hard-boiled egg (6 g protein)
• Nutritional yeast (8 g protein in 1.5 Tbs.)
• Anyone know if nutritional yeast is “real food approved” or not? I feel like I see it added to things like popcorn and such, right?
• GNOWFGLINS almond flour muffins from this month’s thank you video (9g protein each)

• The following from the Healthy Snacks to Go eBook:
• Protein bars (4.7 g protein when 16 bars – those are small bars!)
• Popeye bars (4.6g when cut into 16 bars)
• Power bars/balls – reverse engineered Larabars (1.5 g protein each for Cinnamix balls, pictured above, 7.4 g for a simple “peanutty” bar, plus the carbs needed for energy – add Real Salt to replace electrolytes, too!)
• You can see a video of how to make the power bars in the new snacks lesson at the Fundamentals II eCourse
• Homemade coconut muffins (3.8 g protein per muffin)
• Crispy roasted chickpeas (7 g in 1/2 cup) pictured below

• Peanut butter (9 g protein in 2 Tbs.)
• Think about adding to homemade recipes, putting on apples or celery, or you know…just pack a spoon!
• Almond butter (7 g in 2 Tbs.)
• Pancakes, preferably made into a sandwich with a Tablespoon of peanut butter, seriously yummy:
  • Almond apple pancakes (2.6 g each when making 12 pancakes with one cup almonds)  pictured below
  • Grain-free banana pancakes (1.4 g each if there are 20 in a 3 banana recipe…)
  • Pumpkin pancakes (1.4 g w/coconut flour, 1.8 g with almond flour if 20 in recipe with 1 c. butternut squash.)
  • A single pancake sandwich with a Tbs. peanut butter, then, could have 8-10 g protein, and that would hardly even begin to fill you up. My son’s new favorite lunchtime food is a peanut butter pancake sandwich, thanks to this series!

• Black bean brownies (6.6 g protein in a 2×2″ piece) found in both Smart Sweets and The Everything Beans Book eBooks
• What else with beans is travel worthy?
• Peas (5g in 2/3 cup) I eat them frozen, SO refreshing!
• Coconut macaroons (about 1.2 g each) found in Smart Sweets
• Chia seeds (3 g in 2 Tbs.) add to homemade bars for a little boost

Remember to pair the protein with some carbs by grabbing a piece of whole fruit, dried fruits, or even a quinoa bar.

One reader shared: “[I like to bring] boiled eggs, at least when you can keep them cool (but it doesn’t take much, a small cooler bag would suffice) with sea salt and a banana. Eating bananas after a workout made a BIG difference in how I felt later. I also found it helpful to not eat grain in the morning before I work out (I work out in the a.m., just after I drop off the kids), but I’m sure that varies by person.”

Is anyone else totally hungry right now? I could really go for some protein snacks (heads to fridge for a piece of cheese and grain-free quinoa bar…the version with chocolate!)

What other packable protein snacks can we add?

Be sure to check out the rest of the Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series!

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Radiant LIfe, and I received product samples for my review, which does not impact my personal opinion in the least. See my full disclosure statement here.

Quinoa is not a grain. Technically, it’s a chenopod, related to beets, spinach, and the ever-delicious tumbleweed.

As seeds go, it’s not incredibly high in protein but runs right around average for common nuts and seeds, but if you consider it a grain – and many do, since it behaves a wee bit like one – it’s a powerhouse of protein in comparison to starchy carbs like oats and wheat.

I just knew I could improve upon the quinoa oat snack bar recipe I posted earlier today, and once I figured out that these grain-free, gluten-free quinoa bars would hold together with nuts instead of oats, I left the oat version behind and made about ten batches of the grain-free recipe! If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you may have been tracking my progress, and I’m pumped to finally share the recipes with you all. 

Our family has benefited so much when we go grain-free, that although I wanted to share the oat-based recipe as a more frugal option and one step easier (no grinding of nuts), this one meets the high protein goal much, much better.

I even made one more batch just today, because I wanted to see what adding cocoa powder would do. (Perhaps I saved the best for last?)

These grain-free quinoa bars have been devoured by children and adults alike, those used to real food and, well…normal people, too. I’ve served the bars to everyone who visits my house and taken them to brunches with other moms and family gatherings. (Remember how many batches I made? You didn’t think I ate them all by myself, did you? Of course, if I did, that would explain the need for the Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series…)

It seems that everyone has had a different favorite, so I’m going to post what may be the most flexible snack bar recipe in history. It will end up being about 15 different bar possibilities depending on your goals and your budget. Even if you’ve always been a quinoa hater, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy these bars. Let’s have fun with it!

Workout Friendly High Protein

Since my main goal here, other than culinary delight, was to achieve a high protein bar with zero soy, I did a few things to the recipe to increase the protein content:

• Nuts instead of grains. I replaced all the oats with ground nuts.
• What kind of nut? I wanted the highest protein, so although my first test used walnuts, I learned that walnuts are one of the lowest protein nuts. Phooey. My husband’s Livestrong app told us that sunflower seeds were the highest, so off I went developing a sort of tropical flair bar, with sunflower seeds, almonds, apricots, and coconut. When I searched a few calorie counter sites to figure the total protein in the bars, however, I found ranges from 24-27 g protein/cup for sunflower seeds, 20-31 g in almonds, 14-20 g in walnuts and a whopping 37.7 g (or maybe 24, depending on source) of protein in peanuts. (Good thing my favorite versions always have the peanut butter in them!)
• I added Vital Whey protein powder from Radiant Life to really boost the protein content (more on that product in tomorrow’s protein post). This adds over a dollar a scoop to the total cost of the recipe, so it’s most certainly optional, but definitely adds protein, about 1 g per slice, per scoop.
• I doubled and tripled the Real Salt, since real sea salt adds electrolytes that are important to replace (think Gatorade) after a strenuous workout (or just hard work, genuinely).

Recipe: Tropical Grain-free Quinoa Protein Bars

Ingredients:

1 c. cooked quinoa*
½ c. sunflower seeds, ground finely in food processor
½ c. almonds, ground finely in food processor
¼ c. dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
¼ c. honey or maple syrup
¼ c. shredded unsweetened coconut
2 tsp. cinnamon
½-¾ tsp. unrefined sea salt
1 egg
1 scoop Vital Whey protein powder (optional)

3.3 g of protein per 2×2″ bar

*Soak 1 cup dry quinoa overnight in water and either rinse and cook right away or set to sprout for 2-4 days. To cook: Mix with 2 cups milk or 1 can coconut milk. Bring to a boil, stir, and lower to simmer, covered, for 30 minutes (no stirring). This will make enough for two 9×13 pans of bars or you can eat the cooked quinoa on top of yogurt with blueberries, cinnamon, and maple syrup. You can also freeze extras for future batches. If you only want enough for one recipe, use ¼ c. quinoa and ½ c. milk.

Method:

Simply mix all the ingredients together with a spoon or a mixer, then spread in a greased 8×8-inch glass baking pan. The batter/dough will be rather moist; don’t worry. Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes until firm to the touch in the center and browning on the edges. Cool completely in the pan, then cut into 16 2×2-inch squares. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

As you can see in the photo above, the bars come out thin, moist, and delicious. It’s a bit difficult to eat just one, which is okay since they’re healthy, right?

Here’s the nutritional info for one bar:

Even with the scoop of whey protein powder, the protein isn’t whopping (but the serving size isn’t either, really). This is still a snack I can feel good about, and you can even cut the honey in half if you can handle a not-so-sweet bar. The calorie counter keeps telling me all these bars are high in sugar and I feel badly about that!

Recipe: Choose Your Own Adventure Quinoa Protein Bars

Here’s where you get to start having fun building your own bar. I’ve tried so many different ways, and seriously, every single time they’ve worked out, so I feel pretty confident in telling you that as long as you’ve got a cup of cooked quinoa and a cup of something else like nuts or oats, you can do just about anything with the other ingredients and you’ll have edible, if not delicious, results. For example, the next time I make the tropical version, I think I’ll add 1/2 tsp. orange zest and 1/2-1 tsp. almond extract and see what happens.

Start with the basic recipe below and then adjust the additions to your heart’s content!

Ingredients:

1 c. cooked quinoa (see cooking notes above)
1 c. nuts, ground finely in food processor
¼ c. dried fruit
¼ c. honey or maple syrup
½-3/4 tsp. salt

Additions:

• 1 egg (or not, but helps bars to stay together and be less crumbly)
• 1-2 scoops Vital Whey protein powder
• ¼ c. peanut butter or butter or coconut oil
• 2-3 Tbs. ground flax
• ¼ c. shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1-2 tsp. cinnamon
• up to 2 Tbs. chia seeds
• cut the sweetener in half
• add 1/2 tsp. baking soda for lift
• 1 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
• 2-4 Tbs. cocoa powder (although I don’t know if I’d add both whey protein and cocoa…)
• add some nutritional yeast or high quality gelatin? Both are high protein sources I’ve been meaning to experiment with…

One example of fiddling: on the left, you see a batch with an egg and no baking soda, on the right, no egg but with baking soda. The texture couldn’t be more different, but they both hold together and taste great.

Method:

Just mix well and spread into a greased 8×8 or 7×11-inch pan. Bake at about 350F for 25-30 minutes and see what happens! (Or if your oven is like mine and prefers to stay at 300F no matter what, your toaster oven will knock them out at 325F in 25-30 minutes as well, or 300F in the oven for an hour.) You’ll know the bars are done when the edges are truly browning and the center is stiff. Be sure to cool completely in the pan and refrigerate before deciding if the bars stick together or not. Store in the refrigerator.

You can also dehydrate bars that don’t include eggs (see more below).

Too crumbly? Two fixes:

• You can “re-toast” any bars that seem a little crumbly by separating them individually on a cookie sheet or baking stone and toasting them at about 350F for 10 minutes. Let them cool completely on the pan before removing to store again. This gives them more stability.
• Also, I’ve found that a little “powder” ingredient goes a long way toward bar stability, especially if you use baking soda for lift. Adding even a Tablespoon or two of the whey protein, cocoa powder, or even a bit of wheat flour or brown rice flour adds some needed substance to keep the crumbs in.

Recipe: Katie’s Favorite Grain-Free Quinoa Protein Bars So Far

Here’s the actual recipe for the bars that got all dressed up for the photo shoot, in case you’re not feeling adventurous and just want to make something yummy without thinking about it! They’re my favorite because I love the peanut butter and don’t miss the sweetener, but a lot of people like the tropical better.

Ingredients:

1 c. cooked quinoa (see cooking instruction in Tropical version)
1 c. ground almonds (measure before or after grinding, it makes little difference)
2 scoops protein powder
1/4 c. peanut butter
2 Tbs. honey
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. unsweetened shredded coconut
2 Tbs. chia seeds (optional)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. homemade vanilla extract

5.8 g protein in one 2×2″ bar

Method:

Mix together in a stand mixer and spread into a buttered 8×8 glass pan. The photo above shows the “dough” just before pressing into the pan.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 25-30 minutes until brown on edges and firm on top. Cool completely and store in the refrigerator. I thought these bars were too crumbly after cooling, but once refrigerated, they firmed right up. After refrigeration, they do fine at room temperature when they’re already cut apart.

OR

Make plum-sized balls and flatten onto parchment paper on dehydrator trays. Dehydrate at about 135F for 6 hours or so, until the bars hold together and aren’t too moist. Store in the refrigerator if you want to keep them around more than a day or two, since they’re still pretty moist. They’ll look like this:

Here’s the exact same recipe, baked or dehydrated:

The difference in flavors is incredible. I highly recommend, if you have a dehydrator, experimenting with both ways to see which you prefer.

I’m excited to come back tomorrow with a post on as many high protein sources as I could dream up for your post-workout snacking delight.

What version are you trying first?

***Also, don’t forget about my snacks lesson coming TODAY in the GNOWFGLINS eCourse for lots of other ideas on healthy snacking and some fun video tutorials.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate and will make commission there and get free coupons from Tropical Traditions when new customers make an order. The whey powder was a free sample from Radiant Life, and I’m happy to mention their products in this post since quality, real food whey protein is hard to find! See my full disclosure statement here.

“Yeah, these are pretty good – and if you consider they’re supposed to be healthy, they’re really good!”

So if you, too, are not a fan of quinoa, have hope: you might still like these protein bars.

My kids and quite a handful of other kid testers have also been fans (my son even says, “Are there any quinoa bars left? Yesssss!”), so consider them “kid-tested!”

A High Protein Snack on the Go?

I began the quest to perfect a quinoa protein bar recipe because a friend of mine was training for a running event and was told she should have a certain amount of protein within 15 minutes of a workout. We wondered what might be able to go into a homemade bar that would hold a candle to the high protein soy-based bars that we wanted to avoid. (It turns out the answer is probably nuts, but we thought working with quinoa would be interesting, and it was!)

I fiddled with a  few recipes, most of which began with one from Bob’s Red Mill originally, but I’ve adapted the end result to add more protein, include the soaking step, and of course, be as simple and delicious as possible. I even have a couple grain-free options coming in another post later today.

Recipe: Quinoa Oat Protein Bars

Start with quinoa cooked in milk for additional protein, add oats soaked in yogurt for even more, a touch of honey sweetness and a final blast of peanut buttery protein, and you’ve got a delicious snack bar to take with you to the gym, the beach, or just as a morning brain food snack for a school-aged child.

Ingredients:
Makes 16 bars in an 8×8 glass dish 

1 c. oats
½ c. plain whole milk yogurt (or water)
1 c. cooked (sprouted) quinoa*
¼ c. dried cherries
½ c. chopped nuts (optional)
¼ c. honey
¼ c. peanut butter
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. salt

optional add-ins:
1/4 c. shredded unsweetened coconut
2 Tbs. ground flax
1/2 tsp. baking soda, for lift
1 tsp. vanilla extract

      2.6 g protein per 2×2″ bar
      with ½ c. nuts = 3.2 g protein

*One to four days before baking, soak quinoa overnight in filtered water. Either sprout for 1-3 days following these sprouting directions, or just rinse well and cook. (Sprouted quinoa pictured above)

If you want exactly enough for an 8×8 pan of bars (this recipe), soak 1/4 cup dry quinoa. I always soak a full cup and just freeze the extras in one-cup servings for future batches. Cook with double the amount of whole milk or coconut milk. In other words, cook 1/4 c. dry quinoa in 1/2 c. milk, or use 2 c. milk or one can coconut milk for a full cup of dry quinoa. Bring to a boil, stir, and reduce to a simmer. Cook, covered, for about 30 minutes until liquid is absorbed. If you use coconut milk, try eating the cooked quinoa on top of yogurt with blueberries, cinnamon, and maple syrup. It’s wonderful.

Method:

The night before, mix one cup rolled oats with the 1/2 cup plain yogurt in your mixing bowl. Allow to rest on the counter overnight or for 12-24 hours to reduce phytates and improve digestion. (Why soak?) Make sure your quinoa is also prepped to cook or already cooked per instructions above. I find it’s easier to cook the quinoa one day while preparing lunch or dinner, then have it cold and ready to go into the bar recipe whenever I’m ready to bake.

Note: people find various things with soaking – if your family really reacts to unsoaked grain, you may want to soak in 1/2 c. warm water with a little whole wheat flour or buckwheat (gluten-free) flour to make sure the phytic acid is neutralized, instead of yogurt…

The recipe also been tested with 1 cup soaked and dehydrated oats plus one cup liquid: milk, water, or yogurt.

To mix up the bars, add one cup cooked quinoa to the soaked oats, then simply add all the other ingredients and mix well. Spread in an 8×8-inch baking pan (or 7×11 works too).

In a preheated 350F oven, bake for 20-30 minutes. Or go about 45 minutes at 300F. The bars are done when the middle is no longer soggy and the edges become browned and pull away from the pan slightly. My apologies for that. You see, my oven likes to stay right at 300 degrees no matter what I tell it to do. *raspberries* to that! I’m hoping some faithful KS readers are interested in making these bars, and I humbly request that if you do, you leave the time and temp in the comments so I can come back and edit the post to be more precise.

Cool in the pan before slicing into 16 pieces. Stores best in the refrigerator, although they can handle a few days at room temperature.

Crumbly fix: If you find that your bars come out too crumbly, first make sure to refrigerate them. Then cut them apart and place individual bars on a cookie sheet or baking stone. Toast at about 350F for 10 minutes and allow to cool completely. This “re-toast” process really helps the bars keep their shape and be more solid.

Cook’s Notes

• If you have tamed your sweet tooth and don’t need a lot of sweetness, try cutting the honey right in half.
• Peanuts are the highest protein nut, hence the peanut butter, although I admit I didn’t try using ground peanuts (yet). Sunflower seeds (24-27g/cup) and almonds (20-31g/cup) are the highest protein nuts (numbers vary widely depending on source). Walnuts are lower at 14-20 (maybe 28?) g/cup but have excellent omega-3 fats, so they’re still a good choice.
• Don’t care to soak? Want the bars now? Just use 1 cup oats with 1/2 cup liquid (yogurt, milk OR water) in the recipe.
• This recipe is gluten-free as long as you use gluten-free oats.
• If you use flax, be sure to take care of it so it doesn’t go rancid. (How to store flax)
• Only buy peanut butter that has NO hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.
• Feel free to use any dried fruit you have on hand.

In spite of quinoa being a “grain” with high protein (about 5 g per cup), you can see from the protein content that these guys didn’t end up being as  high protein as maybe I hoped!

(Nutrition facts courtesy of About.com’s calorie counter.)

The bars are fairly small, so it would be easy to eat two or even three after a workout, which would get your protein up near 10 grams, but that’s still far short of most iron-pumping soy protein bars.

Phooey.

Luckily, I can still give these quinoa oat bars a purpose beyond just “delicious healthful snack.” Donielle of Naturally Knocked Up tells me the combination of quinoa and oats are on the list of milk-supply boosting foods. Let’s market them as lactation bars (and use walnuts for the healthy brain fats for baby)!

Whip up a batch for your favorite new or stressed out nursing mama (and be sure to keep a few for yourself to take to the gym…or just to enjoy).

Just don’t tell my husband the new purpose, or he might give up quinoa for good.

Here’s the second recipe for the grain-free option, a tropical version, and how to really pump these up with protein: Grain-free Quinoa Bars

And please leave a comment about cook time/temp if you try these babies out!

Catch the whole Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series for lots of great ideas on being healthy every day…

***Also, don’t forget about my snacks lesson coming TODAY in the GNOWFGLINS eCourse for lots of other ideas on healthy snacking and some fun video tutorials.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate and will make commission there. See my full disclosure statement here.

Impact Ratings:

Level of Commitment: Baby Steps

While a regimented exercise program may be a good and necessary thing for some, being fit and healthy doesn’t always have to include formal "exercise."

I will admit I think I might be blessed with amazing health and physical fitness genes (I have aunts who work retail on their feet and downhill ski, both in their 70s and 80s, no kidding), so don’t hate me when I say that I lost all my baby weight without actually exercising. I just try to keep moving during the day.

I do really appreciate a good workout, and I love getting outside for walks when I can (in Michigan, that’s not always very often November through March). My husband, on the other hand, has been working out formally with P90X, running a 10K, and now Insanity, six days a week. (Yikes.) If you do want a formal exercise program, you might like Thrive90, designed for busy parents and never taking longer than 30 minutes.

Some way, some how, it is important to pair physical work with great nutrition to keep our bodies at optimal health, whether your goal is to lose weight or you’ve thrown out the scale in an effort to simply be healthy, no matter what the numbers say. See more of the Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series…

Here are some other great ways to keep moving without waking up early to exercise:

• gardening
• vacuuming
• taking a walk
• playing a sport with your child(ren)
• playing Wii Sports
• joining a league/team
• swimming
• go dancing
• rolling out homemade tortillas by hand
• kneading bread dough
• toning your tummy while doing dishes

For one last idea for you married folks about how to stay fit with your spouse on "date nights," check out my guest post today at Fit Marriage: How Marriage Helps You Stay Fit – God’s Way Spoiler alert – may be a little risqué for some KS readers! Proceed with caution…  

Do you have a formal exercise time? How do you keep moving?

Don’t forget the open season sale on The Family Camping Handbook: use the code 42DEGREES for 42 % off plus TROOPER15 for 15% off any other ebook while you’re shopping.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate with Fit Marriage Thrive90. See my full disclosure statement here.

Baseball games, art shows, piano recitals, graduation parties and more are filling up calendars across the nation this time of year, and it isn’t easy to retain a commitment to eating only whole, unprocessed foods when you’re on the go all the time.

A little planning and a few homemade healthy snacks go a long way to ensure your success.

I’m excited to be guest lecturing for the GNOWFGLINS eCourse series this week, teaching a lesson in the Fundamentals II class on healthy snacking. I’ll be demonstrating these soaked granola bars in one video, along with the necessary soaked and dehydrated oats to go with them:

and  few of my favorite power bar recipes out of the 15 flavors from Healthy Snacks to Go:

John even makes a cameo helping out with a recipe, and my older two kiddos star in a short segment about what we pack for a long day away from home.

You’ll also receive a PDF with some of the most popular recipes from Healthy Snacks to Go, checklists of snacks ideas for at home and out and about, and helpful links to other resources, as well as access to a forum where you can ask questions of yours truly at any time.

My kid-friendly beef jerky will be the thank you video for premium members next month, too, so don’t miss that! (This month’s extra video is an almond flour muffin recipe that is on my to-do list for this afternoon, coincidentally.) Since much of the course is based on Healthy Snacks to Go, members will also receive a 60% off coupon for the book itself.

Here’s the cool thing about the eCourses in general: membership at any level, even for only $12 for a whole month, gets you access to everything that’s been offered so far. You’ll get to poke around the first Fundamentals course, learn everything you could possible want to know about sourdough (gluten-free track too!), culture dairy, make cheese, and ferment a bunch of stuff.

The lessons continue with something new every week, and at other levels of membership, you can also benefit from menu planners, Q&A conference calls, and more! Be sure to check out all the options HERE, especially if you’re interested in peeking into my kitchen as I prepare some real food snacks that everyone will love.

(My previous guest lectures, if you’re curious, have included my famous homemade yogurt method, sourdough crackers, and sourdough bread. Any member can view any and all of those at any time!)

I hope to see some KSers in the course interacting in the forum – let me know if you have any questions I can help you with, and here’s the link to the ecourses if you’re interested in learning more or registering.

I truly look in the mirror so infrequently that I forgot I had Redmond Clay on some zits overnight, and I was halfway to the bus stop with my son before I realized I’d better turn around rather than socialize with other parents as they wondered why I had bright white dots on my face!

My life just gets too busy for vanity.

On the other hand, when I watched the videos I made recently for the GNOWFGLINS eCourse (I’m on the schedule for next week teaching a lesson on healthy snacking – you’re signed up, right???) I was horrified to discover that I look awfully girthy. I’m hoping the old thing about television adding 15 pounds is true, or maybe I need to shop for more flattering shirts? Most of my pants fit…

Suffice it to say that my relationship with my body image is typically “too busy to worry about it” lately. But I know that I’m probably in the minority for my gender, which is why Kate Wicker’s book, Weightless: Making Peace with your Body, will be such a godsend for people who really need to hear her message.

Kate is a young mother of four children who is on the other side of a battle with an eating disorder, and her book chronicles her daily struggle with body image, being “good enough,” and reminding herself that she is God’s daughter, created perfectly in His image.

Her voice of hope, I am sure, will be the voice calling to many who are struggling with negative body image and the vice of self-improvement. I enjoyed reading about her fervent parenting goals and how she chooses to share positive body image lessons with her young daughters.

As I was reading, my overarching thought was that this book is not for me.

Although everything Kate says is spot on, I’m just not at a place where I’m struggling with body image or self worth. I’m struggling with, “When do I find time to take a shower?” and “Hmmm, did I wear deodorant today? I can’t remember…”

However, the further I got into it, the more nuggets I found with which I could relate, since we all have the need to relate with our Creator appropriately, and sometimes I’m probably not up to par on behaving as a  “blessed daughter of God.”

Kate’s style is engaging and peppered with personal stories (to keep keep tired mamas from falling asleep, ahem), yet the tone and messages are incredibly deep.

In a world where, as Kate quotes, “more than 30 percent of [college women] agreed that they would give up ten years of their life to be ten pounds thinner,” there are plenty of people who desperately need to hear the message of God’s love, acceptance, and perfect design. We real foodies know, of course, that those 30% and more who are dieting and doing the low-fat thing probably are trading in ten or more years of healthy living, unfortunately.

Part of Kate Wicker’s journey toward healing from her eating disorder involved learning: “We do not hunger because we lack food; we hunger because we lack God.” So many of us (Katie raises her hand) turn to food as therapy or solace, and even make it an idol – including healthy food. Kate Wicker’s Catholic faith is an integral part of her healing and is woven throughout the book. She reminds us that the Eucharist is the one meal we should never skip.

I think – although I can’t be sure – that a non-Catholic would still benefit immensely from Weightless. One who is open to or practicing the Catholic faith, however, will be particularly filled up.

Beyond Food

The desire to look attractive, beautiful, goes beyond body shape and food. Kate’s chapter on “Real Beauty” reminds women: “Our beauty gives us power. We have the ability to capture the hearts of others, especially men. Let us attract people with our true beauty and dignity. All of our actions can either give glory to God or misrepresent his truth.”

The author herself feels most gorgeous just after she’s had a baby, a beautiful moment and a beautiful image. Kate directs the reader’s thoughts to the beauty of Mary, Mother of God, as the example of true inner beauty. It is my hope, and I’m sure hers as well, that even a non-Catholic could appreciate learning from and emulating such a wise, blessed woman.

There is also a chapter about the “Mom Bod,” which brings me to the qualification that Weightless really does speak to young mothers, or at least people who are old enough to imagine themselves a mother sometime soon. I think there are many excerpts that teenage girls should hear, but I don’t know that the book as a whole would be on the right level for an adolescent struggling with body image issues. There are just too many references to motherhood that would probably be beyond a girl’s reach. (The teenager’s mother, however, should probably have the book close at hand, since the following chapter is about raising children, girls especially, to have healthy body images. It is fantastic and full of wisdom.)

Parenting Wisdom

Some of my favorite pieces of advice from the chapter on raising girls include:

1. Eat as a family; talk about your day and your faith at meals. Discuss healthy food choices, “real” food vs. factory-made food.
2. Don’t make mealtime a battleground; teach children to listen to their bodies.
3. Don’t tell young girls they’re “pretty” all the time; vary the ways you complement their physical appearance and performance.
4. Don’t worry too much about clothes, beyond modesty.

Final Thoughts

As I’m talking about Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise this week, suddenly this book seems to fit perfectly with what people should be reading. I think Kate does an excellent job weaving stories with Scripture, Church teaching, her personal journey, and important life lessons. I also think that Weightless is not for everyone, but if you are a mother (or could imagine yourself as one) who struggles with body image and preferably a Catholic (or open-minded Christian), then you need this book.

Disclosure: Kate is a friend and colleague who blogs at katewicker.com, but knowing her and getting a review copy don’t change the fact that my opinion is my own.

Be sure to keep up on the Real Food Weight Loss series next week as we tackle exercise, the complementarity of men and women, sweetener-free popsicles for kids, and at least THREE different quinoa protein bar recipes! Everyone seems to have a different favorite, so I’ll share them all!

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

See my full disclosure statement here.

Friday, May 18th through Monday, May 21st, the Family Camping Handbook is on sale for 42% off – because once when we camped out, we emerged from the tent to a 42-degree day…in August. Luckily we had packed hats and mittens! Michigan’s weather can be just that crazy. The sale code is 42DEGREES.

Buy It Here!

Kitchen Stewardship in the Big Woods: A Family Camping Handbook with Real Food Options

57 pages

$6.95 Now 42% off (only $4.05!) with code 42DEGREES

Note: All KS eBooks are in PDF form and are instant downloads, not hard copies. (Kindle formats coming!)

More Books, More Savings

Also, if you are interested in some new recipes for the summer party/travel/outdoor season, you may want to grab another KS ebook, perhaps Healthy Snacks to Go or Smart Sweets, at the same time. You can get 15% off any other ebook along with that good deal on the camping book – because we had a 15-month-old with us when we had that 42-degree morning. She was a trooper! Therefore, that code is TROOPER15.

The Family Camping Handbook is part real food recipes for the woods, part tutorial on how to camp with young children, and part “how to tent camp” for rookies. There’s something for everyone!

You can take a quick look at all KS eBooks right HERE or get a more in-depth look at each one:

• Family Camping Handbook, 2nd Edition: Kitchen Stewardship in the Big Woods
• Healthy Snacks to Go, 2nd Edition: Get on Your Way with Real Food, Fast
• Smart Sweets: 30 Desserts to Indulge Your Sweet Tooth
• The Everything Beans Book: 30 Frugal, Nutrient-Packed Beans Recipes for Every Eater

Have a fabulous weekend, and be sure to follow the Real Food Weight Loss and Exercise series this week and next for great inspiration and conversation!