Recipe for my high-fiber, high-energy ‘guru chu’
Ingredients:
- wheat bran
- oat bran
- unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut.
- honey
- spices: ginger, cayenne
- salt
- optional: unrefined coconut oil
- optional: chopped raw almonds and walnuts, raw pumpkin seeds, chopped dates, lycium fruit, organic raisins
In a large mixing bowl, add roughly equal parts of wheat bran, oat bran and unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut. I use 2 cups of each. Add 1 cup of raw sunflower seeds. Add, if you like, an equal amount of raw sesame seeds. I sometimes add about 4 tablespoonsful of unrefined coconut oil — for moisture, flavor, and its many health benefits. But this is not an essential ingredient. Dump a generous amount of honey into the mix. Sprinkle on ginger and cayenne and salt to taste.
With a sturdy fork, mix it altogether. You’ll probably need to add honey as you mix. You need just enough honey so that it all clings together when well mixed.
Press flat in a cookie tin, cover and chill for an hour or longer. Then with a knife, cut into squares. Maybe if you were clever and corn-starched the cookie tin first you wouldn’t have to pry each square loose like I do. Store covered in the fridge.
Individual squares, wrapped in wax paper or plastic wrap, travel well in pockets, briefcases and lunch bags.
For variety and more crunch (and fat) and nutritional value, you can mix in chopped almonds and walnuts and pumpkin seeds and chopped dates and dried lycium berries and organic raisins. You can probably think of other yummy and nutritious things to add to the mix. Optionally, you can also add vanilla whey powder for flavor and protein.
Incidentally, the wheat bran, oat bran, coconut and raw sunflower and sesame seeds are all surprisingly inexpensive when you buy them in bulk bags at good natural grocers — like Vitamin Cottage in Colorado and New Mexico. Nuts tend not to be inexpensive anywhere.
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- No more raw almonds — regardless of what the package says
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- ‘0 grams trans fats’ is highly misleading on food labels
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