Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Bars, Kid Friendly!

Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Bars

Prep Time: 10 Mins  Cook Time:  25 Mins  Total Time: 35 Mins
These Healthy Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Bars are soft, moist and full of good-for-you and tasty ingredients. They come together in a cinch in one bowl and make the perfect on-the-go breakfast or snack.



Ingredients:

Wet Ingredients

• 1¼ cups mashed banana (4 bananas)
• ½ cup brown cane sugar*
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients

• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 1½ cups oats (or scant 1½ cups oat flour)
• 1 cup almond flour/meal

Mix-Ins

• ½ cup + 2 tbsp chocolate chips
• ½ cups oats
• 1/2 cup dried SVO blueberries

Directions: 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375F or 180F. Grease a square baking pan with coconut oil or non stick spray.
2. Blend the oats until a fine flour forms (using a blender or an immersion blender).
3. Add the banana to a large mixing bowl. Blend or mash the banana. Add the rest of the wet ingredients to the large bowl. Whisk them together until they are fluffy and fully combined.
4. Whisk and add the seeds, baking powder and sea salt, one by one, to the wet ingredients in the large bowl. Fold in the oat flour and almond meal until a thick and fully combined batter is formed.
5. Fold in the oats and chocolate chips (1/2 cup) to the batter until the oats and chocolate chips are evenly dispersed.
6. Pour the batter into the pan. Smooth out the top with the back of a spoon and sprinkle the extra 2 tbsp of chocolate chips on top. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until the bars begin to golden and a toothpick inserted in the bars comes out almost clear. Leave the bars to cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
7. Cut and store the cooled bars in a sealed container in the freezer for a couple of weeks or in a sealed container for up to 4 days in the fridge. Enjoy!

NOTES

* Substitute brown cane sugar with light brown sugar (Note: this recipe will no longer be refined sugar free)
* Ensure that all your products are certified gluten-free if necessary (oats, baking powder, almond meal)
* Ensure that all your chocolate chips are certified vegan if necessary

Bonus:

We found a great article about why you should ditch the conventional baby food.

5 Reasons to Ditch Store Bought Baby Food.

Reason #1: Organic homemade baby food makes kids smarter.  Ok, ok I can’t guarantee your child will be smarter if he eats organic baby food but homemade organic baby food has a higher nutrient content so it can’t hurt, right?  Studies show that organic produce has higher levels of vitamin C and antioxidants than conventional produce.  Scientists guess this could be due to conventional farming practices that encourage quick, high yields.  Growing extra large tomatoes at the speed of light (as a random example) saturates produce with sugar and water which may decrease nutrient content.  What about organic baby food in a jar?  I’m afraid the news isn’t great.  The process used to prepare organic baby food for grocery store shelf life includes heating the food at high temperatures to kill bacteria.  Unfortunately, the high heat also kills many vitamins and nutrients as well.

Reason # 2: Organic homemade baby food won’t increase a child’s risk of cancer.Why?  Because organic food is free of pesticides, the chemicals that put infants more at risk for cancer, nervous system toxicity, reproductive and hormonal disorders.  Maybe it’s common knowledge that conventional produce is grown with farming methods that use pesticides and insecticides while organic farming practices do not use these substances.  But here are a few (lesser known) reasons I’m convinced organic produce is worth the higher price point (for infants and children in particular):

• Two popular organophosphorus (OP) pesticides used on conventional produce, malathion and chlorpyrifos, interfere with nerve function and can cause behavioral disturbances.

• The Environmental Working Group, non-profit environmental research group in Washington DC, points out that the brain of a newborn child develops quickly and is particularly sensitive to toxic substances.  Because of their susceptibility to developmental toxicity, infants exposed to the chemicals found in conventional baby food are more at risk for cancer, nervous system toxicity, reproductive and hormonal disorders.

• According the Environmental Defense Fund, a non -profit environmental group committed to solving environmental problems reports that more than 1 million children ages 1 to 5 consume a minimum of 15 pesticides a day from conventional fruits and vegetables.  Of these 1 million plus children, at least 600,000 eat amounts of OP pesticides from fruits and vegetables that the federal government deems unsafe!

• The National Academy of Sciences conducted a five-year study and concluded in 1993 that government standards for pesticides in food do not account for the special vulnerability of infants.

• Farmers on conventional farms have been shown to have a higher rate of cancer and there are also suggestions that pesticides may be linked to Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

• The Environmental Working Group and the National Academy of Sciences support infants receiving more protection from pesticides in food and water.

What is particularly disturbing about conventional baby food and infants is the fact that infant’s bodies are smaller and they metabolize food more quickly than adults.  Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the James Beard Foundation, recommends choosing organic food options because small children are “exposed to proportionately greater amounts of chemicals that act as neurotoxins, endocrine disrupters, and carcinogens.”  Because of their size, these chemicals will cause more harm in children than in adults.

There is good news, however.  Because children are able to metabolize food at a quicker rate, they are also able to eliminate pesticides and insecticides from their system at a faster rate when organic food is introduced to their diets.   A study done at the University of Washington monitored the diets of 23 elementary school children to research the effect of organic diets.  Researchers replaced conventional diets with organic diets over a 15-day period.  The amount of OP pesticides in the children’s urine dropped almost immediately when organic diets were introduced and then rose again when the conventional diets resumed.

What’s in a jar of conventional baby food?

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyzed conventional baby food samples from leading manufacturers to find out how many pesticides infants eat.  EWG found 16 different pesticides in the 8 baby food items they tested.  Of those 16 pesticides, “three are probably human carcinogens, five are possible human carcinogens, eight are neurotoxins, five are endocrine disruptors, and five are categorized as oral toxicity 1 chemicals, the most toxic designation.”  Fruit samples contained more pesticides than vegetable samples- with pears, peaches and applesauce leading the pack.

Reason #3: Our babies aren’t lab rats.  Really, they aren’t! So why would we feed them conventional food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?  I’d prefer science experiments containing non-food genes and bits of pieces of insect and human genetics stay out of my baby’s food thank you very much.  The United States is one of the only countries that does not require conventional food makers to identify GMOs in food (WHY?!).  Homemade organic baby food does not contain GMOs.  Enough said.

Reason #4: Babies get used to mom’s cooking.  Trust me, it’s an acquired taste. Children’s eating habits and opinions about nutrition form early and stay with them for life so early exposure to a wide variety of healthy food is key.  A child’s palate is forming in the womb, so what mama ate while pregnant will influence his food preferences as well.  The more you expose your baby to your style of cooking early, the better chance your toddler or preschooler will continue to eat mom’s cooking.

Reason #5: Mama knows if her kid starts stealing cars later in life it won’t be because she jacked him up on chemicals and preservatives. Whew, you can rest easy.

Interested in some of our favorite baby food recipes?  Both my kids loved these between the ages of 6-18months (ish)

Click here to see the original article.