How To Make No-Bake Easy Chia Protein Snack BarsLooking for a great tasting, customizable easy, no-bake protein bar?Look no further than this slide show! If you’re tired of sugared-up store-bought selections & expensive bars breaking the bank, you’ll need a recipe you can make at home. These bars can be customized with all your favorite healthy flavors so you won’t get bored, and they’re quick to make because you don’t have to bake. Let’s get started!

What if you’re NOT making your own bars?Read some labels in the store on granola & protein or fiber bar boxes. You’ll be shocked at the amount of sugar you’ll find. If you are trying to lose weight, get fit, or get more fiber…sugar isn’t what you need. Bars don’t need loads of sugar, preservatives, calorie-dense dried fruit or lots of expense to taste good. Look at these ingredients lists from real bars on store shelves now for a sugar wake-up call!

The 2nd ingredient on the box usually indicates that’s what ingredient there is the second-most of in the product. So right behind “quinoa” or the “oats”, if you see a sugar or another word for sugar, you can bet the bars are going to be really sweet.

The BaseOats! Oats are gluten free, easy to use & take flavors well. They’re also good for you with bad cholesterol busting beta-glucan fiber, manganese, trace copper, B1, and even plant protein. They’re also a bit sticky when moistened, so they’re a perfect base for your bar. However, by themselves, they don’t have much taste & can be dry and boring. It’s time to turn them into something great!

Cut the Sugar!Holding the bars together is usually where the sugar overload comes in for store bought bars. You don’t need loads of syrups and refined sugar when you have natural nut butters & honey or agave nectar. It doesn’t even need that much! Plus, the protein powder adds clinging power when it’s wetted with a little non-dairy milk. Chia seeds’ soluble fiber also helps the bars cling together.

There are so many nut butters available. Choose from peanut, cashew, almond or walnut to pair the nut flavor with your mix-ins. You can also get seasoned nut butters like almond & cinnamon for even more variety. Natural nut butters don’t have added sugar, but they have clinging power.

Power Up With Chia SeedsDid you know that chia seeds are 23% protein? It’s complete protein too, like that found in meat. That’s unusual for a plant. Chia also has more calcium by weight than milk, plus the magnesium & trace boron that helps you absorb it. So, not only do these tiny seeds help your bars cling together, they’re also providing the protein you want.

When you add chia, soluble & insoluble fiberhelp fight hunger & keep you feeling full longer.

Pick the right fruit!Many snack bars, granola bars & protein bars use dried fruit to add color & flavor. However, many dried fruits also feature preservatives, drying chemicals, and…that pesky added sugar. Sulphites irritate some people’s digestive system, sulphur dioxide has links to constipation & asthma triggers. Leave it all out of your menu when you choose:

FREEZE Dried Fruit:

Look at the ingredients on a freeze dried fruit pouch. If you’ve chosen the right one, the ingredients will only list the names of the fruits in the bag & nothing more. Simple, natural, crunchy, and full of great fruit taste!

Let’s Jam!Another easy way to add fruit without a sugar overload is with home-made jam. Making the jam yourself allows you to keep all the fiber from the original fruit, sweeten with stevia & gel it with chia seeds. A layer of jam in the middle of your bars lets you add your favorite fruit flavors (a real “PB&J” treat!) at any time. Because you can make jam with frozen fruit, good taste is always in season.

Strawberry shown here.

Home made jam is important because the fruit is never heated for canning (heat reduces nutrients), you only get the portion you want, there are no preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, and best of all, it has a fresh flavor you just can’t beat.

How to Make Chia Seed Fresh Fruit JamFor most fruits other than blueberries (which are slightly acidic) you don’t need to cook the jam. Strawberries, peaches, nectarines, apples, raspberries & blackberries will all work without cooking.

Example Strawberry Jam Recipe:½ cup strawberry slices½ teaspoon stevia powder (more to taste, depending on berry sweetness)1 teaspoon dry MySeeds chia seeds

Pulse the berries in a food processor to get them slightly chopped. Add the stevia powder & puree. Once smooth, stir in the seeds with a spoon until thoroughly mixed. Spread the mixture in a pie plate & place uncovered in the fridge for two hours (or over-night) The pie plate’s large surface area allows excess juice to evaporate while the soluble fiber on the chia seed shells absorbs more fruit juice thickens the jam naturally. Do a taste test to see if you need a sprinkle of extra stevia, because berries vary in sweetness depending on the season.

*Refrigerator / no cook jams are looser than store bought jams.They act more like a spread or a ‘squeeze bottle jam’ than the regular jam in a glass jar.

Make it Your WheyWhey (or your favorite) protein powder works well in these bars. If you’re tired of powder in a drink, try it in your customized bar. The different flavors of powder can also be used to customize the taste. Vanilla powder is used in this recipe since it goes with almost any nut or fruit you may choose.

Available flavors may include chocolate, berry, strawberry, orange, vanilla and more. Check your local store for protein powder choices.

Mixing is EasyBasic Bar Ingredients

½ cup rolled oats1 tsp dry MySeeds chia2 tbsp protein powder1 tbsp honey or agave nectar2 tbsp non-dairy milk (as needed)

Once you’ve chosen what you’d like to add, just put the oats, nut butter, honey protein powder, chia seeds & any mix-ins you’d like into a bowl. Stir thoroughly with a spoon until a crumbly “almost-dough” forms. It will be too dry to cling at this point, so add 1 tablespoon non dairy milk, and stir again. Keep adding milk until the oats just cling together.

Spoon onto parchment paper and form into bar shapes.These will set up more if you cover them loosely, and place in the fridge for a few hours. The oats and chia seeds take some time to evenly absorb and distribute the liquid, helping them cling.

*Non dairy milk is important, as dairy must always be refrigerated.

Jam BarsWant jam bars instead? Make very thin bars if you want to add a layer of jam. Just press the oat dough into thin rectangles on your parchment. Spread the jam on top of one thin bar, then top it with another.

Refrigeration will help these set up. Wrap them in the parchment you used to spread the dough, and you can take them with you once they chill!

Mix-ins Keep It Lively

What goes well with your favorite flavor of protein powder or jam? What would the kids like in their lunch box? Just because sugar coated dried fruit is off the list, doesn’t mean you can’t still have lots to mix in.

Chopped nuts: walnuts, almonds, cashews, brazilnuts, pistachios, etc Snipped prunes: adds still more fiber & a sweet taste. Organic prunes are

dried without the help of chemicals or sugars Snipped dates: adds sweetness without much taste. Organic dates are dried

without the help of chemicals & never needed added sugar Sunflower seeds: great taste and crunch! Good if you want a touch of salt Mini chocolate chips: nice for dessert bars, just sprinkle a few in (But the

chips must be ‘mini’ size so the bars will still cling. Big pieces disrupt the forming of the bars)

What exciting uses are there for chia seeds outside of bars?What could you do with fun chia recipes that are also healthy?

All of the foods you see here were made & enhanced with chia seeds. Chia seeds are used to add fiber to the Apple Ramen Plate. Chia blends flavors together in the Rainbow Potato Salad. Chia adds fiber & complete plant protein to your Berry Smoothie.

The Chia Chocolate Cracklin Snowballs are richly chocolaty but have only half the fat of an ordinary cookie. Chia seeds thicken the tasty (vegan!) Easy Chia Chili.

You can make a great variety of tasty burgers like the Chia Roasted Pepper Turkey Burger too, because chia helps the patty cling together & then blends the flavors in the healthy cilantro topping.

Make breakfast better with Carrot Cake Pancakes…they’ve got a whole cup of vegetables AND chia…but they taste like carrot cake. If you like snacks or appetizers, you’ll want to make Chia Sweet Potato Dip, it’s better for you than cheese spreads & works great on vegetables.

With MySeeds chia you can get all these recipes…and more for FREE!

We GIVE AWAY great full color, step by step easy recipes all the time. When you choose MySeeds you get 2 free instant chia seed cook books with any size order.

Look over the fun recipes to decide what you’ll make first as you wait for your seeds to arrive in the mail.

Are 2 Cook Books not enough?That’s ok, we’ve got the MySeeds Recipe of the Month club mailer. The recipes are still full-color step-by-step full page complete recipes. It emails you 1 free recipe every month for as long as you

like. The longer you stay, the more you’ll get! There’s never any obligation or irrelevant ads.

Want to know even more about chia?Want to grab some seeds of your own right now?How fast will your seeds get to your home when you order? (hint: really quickly!)

Come to

www.mychiaseeds.com ,

where we have more photos, more videos, more recipes & more great chia articles. There’s so much to learn about these great seeds and what they can do for you, that you couldn’t possibly fit it all into one slide show. This was just the “Top 10”, but you need MySeeds to find out even more.