Superpower Energy Bars for School Days and Work Days

Published on Friday, August 27, 2010, by Jill Santopietro / Edit Post

When your blood sugar plummets and a fresh apple is nowhere in sight, that smashed energy bar at the bottom of your bag is a godsend. It's portable and mess-free, and will buy you time until your next meal. It probably also contains alien ingredients like hydrolyzed collagen and soy protein isolate. And it won't taste that good. But you're desperate, right?

With deliciousness at the front of our minds, we're saying goodbye to commercial brands of energy bars. We reverse-engineered some of the popular bars, and underneath the fancy packaging they're no more complicated to make than Rice Krispies Treats. So hikers and surfers, moms and kids, roll up your sleeves and make a batch or two of CHOW's Figgy Fuel, Superseed, Cherry Power, and Chocolate Victory bars. Wrap them in plastic and store them in the freezer, in an airtight container on the counter, or at the bottom of your bag. These bars have power: Harness it.

Figgy Fuel Bar

Superseed Bar

Cherry Power Bar

Chocolate Victory Bar

Jill Santopietro is a former food editor at CHOW.

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POST A COMMENT |15 Comments

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  • FYI, these bars are typically loaded w/ carbs and calories. I typically leave out the dried fruit and will use one fresh banana for one batch of bars. I also use rolled oats, vanilla-flavored protein powder, natural almond or peanut butter, a little honey and some dark chocolate natural chips and a little cinnamon. This gives me the most bang for my caloric buck and levels off my blood glucose.

  • You can up the protein in most of these recipes by replacing the crispy rice cereal with something like Whey Protein Crisps(this is one source, I'm sure there are others http://www4.netrition.com/bpt_whey_protein_crisps.html). It's more expensive than the cereal, but it's still cheaper than buying the bars.

  • This is an awesome list which I was looking for! :-) ohh protein..protein..!!

  • blizzardgirl33 - you're right, we don't currently have the capability to add stories to favorites. We're working on getting it back!

  • If you need to make nut free bars, most schools allow sunflower seed butter as well as soy nut butter. You can substitute sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds for the nuts. I like to toast the seeds a bit before making energy bars. Hemp seeds are a great addition too.

  • Why can't I add this to my favourites? Have things changed since I last browsed CH?

  • most schools in Canada are nut-free now

  • I believe this is most likely the nut world's attempt to cull our heard. It makes sense, I mean, for years nuts were the nuts but now humans are nuts and nuts want their title back. Hell, if I would have known some kid could not eat nuts at my school I would have stuffed jiff in their draws and watched my gene pool benefit in the long run.

    Please note this was written while a pistachio had a...+READ

    I believe this is most likely the nut world's attempt to cull our heard. It makes sense, I mean, for years nuts were the nuts but now humans are nuts and nuts want their title back. Hell, if I would have known some kid could not eat nuts at my school I would have stuffed jiff in their draws and watched my gene pool benefit in the long run.

    Please note this was written while a pistachio had a Brazilian nut trained right at my naughty bits (I think they were trying to be ironic, but I am not sure). My apologies to anyone with nut sensitive children but I had no choice.-COLLAPSE

  • Did I just read this right? You cannot send you own child to school with nuts in his or her own lunch?

  • Doc AMC
    I have the same problem with Nuts in school so I use "I.M. Healthy " SoyNut Butter in place of peanut butter. There is very little taste difference once you use it with other ingredients plus we have nut allergies in the family already and that is a safe alternative. Good Luck!!!

  • These look good but our schools no longer allow nuts or nut products in packed lunches/snacks - anyone have a good recipe for a granola bar with no nuts (and preferably some chocolate) that my kids will eat?

  • You can boost the protien content substantially by adding some hulled hemp seeds.

  • These look interesting, but at between 4 and 5 grams, the bars are not even close to hitting the protein levels found in their commercial counterparts (well, maybe not those listed here, but certainly most of the bars I tend to purchase). Anything we can do to boost those numbers?

  • Jill,

    These look awesome.

    Now, if we could only get you to make them on video in a tiny apartment. :-)

  • the home-made ones look SO MUCH better than their store bought counterparts.....