I’ve never been a person who loved air conditioning. The way it always seems to dry out my eyes, to artificially chill my skin. Our 1950’s-build home is not quite far up the canyon enough to benefit from the cooler mountain temperatures, and isn’t new enough to have such a modern convention…and I’m ok with it. But it doesn’t change the way summer happens up here.
There is no coming home to bask in the air conditioning after a long ride. We rise early, get out early and get back before the sun starts to bake the road, the yard, and the garden above the house. For the hours that I can, I sit with the windows and doors open in the kitchen – listening to the deer walk through the yard and the cicadas singing, but as soon as the lunch hour hits, I retreat to my office in the basement where the temps are decidedly more chill. Evenings warrant trips to the creek down the road and cool showers before climbing into bed, and open windows all night mean we get to hear the birds early in the morning. Having popsicles for a midday snack is practically requisite in a heat wave like this (and also, exactly what Ayurveda would recommend for pitta constitutions in the summer season, by the way!)
All the things in life still happen, just a little bit differently. The only thing that barely ever happens is turning on the oven. If I were to bake in the morning, it would heat the house all day. In the evening, I find myself too worn by the heat to want to stick my head in to check a cake. There are exceptions, of course, but I find myself thinking of ways to fuel us that don’t require turning it on. Enter these easy, Mint Chocolate Big Energy Bars.
They’re just the thing I want to take with me on a ride, hike, run or road trip. They’re packable, textural, and filled with good stuff that most baked goods aren’t. Eating keeps my body cool in the heat, and no-baking them makes my whole house cool all summer. Win, win-win!
Whether you’ve been here for some time, or you’re new to this little newsletter (hi there! I’m SO glad you’re here, and thank you for following along!) you’ll quickly note that I’m not a packaged energy snack person. Whether it’s a gel, bar, fruit chew, or some other form of snack to pack for my runs/rides/hikes/adventures, I’m going to make it myself. Because I can guarantee that what I make doesn’t taste like cardboard, won’t contain preservatives or non-foods, and will be packed with all the good stuff that my body needs biologically and energetically. Since I don’t have a lot of time on my hands (surprisingly, when you cook for others for a living, you have very little time to cook for yourself!), my homemade snacks have to be quick, lo-fi, and high-impact. And these bars tick all the boxes:
There’s another reason why I’m a big fan of making my own homemade “energy” foods, particularly of these Minty Chocolate Energy Bars. In Ayurveda, we recognize that no food exists in a silo. Just like anything else in life, the way that it swirls together with set, setting, experience, etc matters. And this applies to food. Eating a lot of things that look good for us individually does not mean that they play well when eaten together. And the easiest way I can think of to explain this is: if you would eat it in a bowl with a spoon, then it’s fine to eat all the things together in a bar, baked good, or even packaged product.
So, if there’s an ingredient that you don’t recognize, you probably couldn’t figure out how to eat it in a bowl with a spoon, right? Hard pass.
Would you eat fresh spinach with almond butter, chia seeds, a banana, and a scoop of protein powder topped with ice in a bowl with a spoon? Sounds a little, er, sloppy. Hard pass on that complicated smoothie.
And would you eat egg whites with cacao, dehydrated fruit, nuts and chia seeds in a bowl with a spoon? Just swirl it up and shovel it in? I would not. Hard pass on that “clean burning protein bar.”
In Ayurveda, each of these combinations I list above is a recipe for digestive distress, and poor nutrient absorption, and often, a large number of foods combined like this in a diet can be contributing factors to full-blown digestive disorders (colitis, IBS, chronic constipation.)
Instead, take the five minutes to blend up ingredients you recognize and CHOW DOWN.
Sure. Yes. Of course, you can.
I personally am not a big fan of protein powders; they’re isolated ingredients, yet again, extracted from their real foods and separated out for our convenience. Instead, I’d rather eat whole food protein. BUT, if you have a protein powder that you love and it works well for you, add it here in lieu of the desiccated coconut flakes. Boom.
A few other twists you can make to these bars; switch out the nuts, and nut butter, add spices…you’re feeling me, right?
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