RECIPE: Chocolate Fudge

Okay, so today is obviously Valentine’s Day—which isn’t really something I care all that much about. I mean, yes, I’m all for love and romance but I think most of us know it’s basically a fake holiday designed to boost consumer spending more than anything else. It’s also a day when a lot of people, particularly kids, consume excessive quantities of sugar. (My friend Stacy Whitman over at School Bites has been trying to do something about this by creating a Candy-Free School Valentine Pledge. I guess it may be a little too late to sign, but check it out anyway!)

Personally, I like to indulge in a bit of chocolate—not just today but most days. (I know, I’m such a female cliché that way. But dark chocolate/cacao is good for you. Study after study confirms it.) I was even thinking about getting my favorite—See’s Candy—and sacrificing a point or two on the Whole Life Challenge as part of a Valentine’s Day treat tonight. But then my 8-year-old son, of all people, asked if there was a way for us to have a chocolaty dessert while still sticking to the Whole Life Challenge rules.

RECIPE: LaraBar Bites

About a year ago, well before I did The Whole Life Challenge, I was already trying to look for minimally processed foods to feed my family, and was especially dismayed at the long list of artificial crap in almost all of the supposedly healthy “nutrition” bars we were used to eating. The one brand that didn’t contain a ton of added sugar and other awful ingredients? LaraBar. Honestly, most of the flavors contain a mere four or five ingredients—and virtually none (except those containing chocolate chips, as far as I can tell) has added or refined sugar of any kind.

This is why LaraBars are a perfect grab-and-go snack when you’re doing The Whole Life Challenge. Again, not all of the flavors are completely sugar-free, so they’re not all compliant, but many of them are—including my favorite flavor: Coconut Cream Pie. However, as much as I love LaraBars, the more I thought about how few ingredients there were, the more I wondered if I could just make them myself. So I did a quick online search and behold! There were a ton of websites sharing their recipes. Coming in at the very top of my “Coconut Cream LaraBar Recipe” search was a site called My Whole Food Life. The recipe looked awesome so I decided to give it a try and OMG was I glad that I did. These things were like coconut crack. Almost too good—and, I hate to say it, a billion times better than the store-bought LaraBars. They’re also crazy-easy to make. If you want to check out the recipe, click here. (Note: My Whole Food Life also has recipes for a ton of other LaraBar flavors that I have yet to try, plus plenty of other recipes that are Whole Life Challenge compliant!)

RECIPE: Clean Banana Nut Muffins

One of the best things about doing The Whole Life Challenge so far has been discovering all the amazing, healthy recipes people share with each other. Yes, the grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning (hey! cleaning!) can be overwhelming at times. But it's worth it when you're putting your health first...and when the results are this ridiculously delicious. Seriously, when I first saw this recipe I thought there was no way they'd taste like real banana-nut muffins. I could not have been more wrong. These babies are moist and every bit as good as (if not better than) the ones I used to make that were loaded with flour, sugar and more sugar. Pretty amazing for baked goods that are Whole Life Challenge compliant at the advanced level, not to mention gluten-free (and Paleo, if that happens to be your dietary preference)!

The sweetness in these comes from nothing more than the bananas and dates, and the moist and buttery taste is courtesy of coconut oil. (Don't complain to me about the saturated fat! I've read a ton of research on coconut oil and will write more about its many health benefits in a future post.) If you want to make these vegan, I've been told you can substitute 1 cup applesauce for the 6 eggs, but I haven't tried that yet. (If you do, please report back with your results!) I have baked eggless cookies using a baking soda-water substitute for the eggs, but I'm not sure if that will work with these since you're using coconut flour instead of death flour (seriously, you know that refined white stuff will kill you, right?). Incidentally, coconut flour has a phenomenal nutritional profile (hello? 3 to 5 grams of fiber per tablespoon, depending on the brand!) and creates a much better bread-like texture than almond flour, in my opinion. ALSO NOTE: I usually halve this recipe and get about 9 muffins out of it, which winds up making the serving size slightly smaller (and therefore each muffin lower in fat and calories). Anyway, here's the recipe. Enjoy!