Home Made Energy Bars For Runners

Want an alternative to those expensive sports/energy bars that you buy in the specialty running stores? This recipe for home made energy bars is delicious and easy to make.

Save money, be natural, and get the nutrients you need to perform well in sports.

Dried Fruit

My teenage daughter and my 70 year old uncle both love these energy bars. You can vary the ingredients dramatically and they're still delicious. Try using raisins or apricots or a combination of dried fruit.

Ingredients

1 C rolled oats
1 1/2 C almonds, chopped semi-fine
1 1/2 C dried cranberries
1/2 C nonfat dried milk
1/2 C ground flax seeds
3/4 C sugar
2 tsp butter
1 C corn syrup/honey - either one or a combo
1 1/4 C peanut butter

Chop almonds. Mix dry and wet ingredients until well-combined. Spread on a flat baking sheet lined with foil or wax paper or roll in balls. Roll balls in chocolate chips for a special addition or press chips on top of flat mixture. Cut into separate portions, wrap with foil, and keep in freezer until needed. No baking is required.

The recipe above costs maybe to make and produces about 30 bars! If you buy energy bars in a store, you are paying at least per bar. Big difference in cost - especially if you've got a teenager eating them by the handful. I didn't do a calorie calculation on these but my guess is it would be pretty high. That's what you want in an energy bar - lots of instant energy (fruit and sugars), along with fats, and protein for a full complement of nutrients.

Home Made Energy Bars For Runners

Do you want more ideas on natural ways to eat and stay fit? Get your free subscription to 365 ways to lose fat and be fit at [http://ExcessFatAway.com]

Stephanie Atwood is a long distance running coach who coaches The WOW Team, a women's running and walking club in the Bay Area. Atwood is certified as a personal trainer and consults on sports nutrition. Ms. Atwood is a Master's Runner and runs or walks almost every day. When we're moving, we're getting fit. It doesn't matter how old we are or how fast we're moving!"

Ms. Atwood is author of the weekly fitness E-zine The Weekly Pep Talk and hosts the blog http://goWOWTeam.com

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Top 50 Iron Rich Foods - Boost Your Energy and Beat Low Iron Symptoms

Increasing your intake of iron rich foods should not be too difficult. All it takes is for you to know which of the foods you eat are rich in iron, and start planning your meals accordingly. Sadly, the extent of most people's knowledge, when it comes to iron and iron rich foods, is just too limited.
 
For a quick read on where to start you can read our article on Foods with an Iron Punch, but here we'll give a much more in depth overview of the best iron Rich Foods complete with their Iron content.
 
The data has been extracted from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference Release 22 from September 2009 which contains all the nutritional data for well over 7,000 food items. Unfortunately you can't just download the database and do a quick sort on Iron content to give you the best Iron Rich Foods. Actually you can, but the problem is that the list you get won't be very helpful in your daily life as the top items would be things like freeze dried parsley, dried thyme, beluga meat, cumin seed and all kinds of other foods you wouldn't eat in large enough quantities to help you load up on Iron.
 
We have done the hard work for you and have carefully reviewed the USDA database and compiled this list of Top 50 Iron Rich Foods and have listed them by category so you know that when you eat meat what meat to choose, when you buy vegetables what to put in your shopping cart and when you need a quick snack what can help you boost your iron intake in just a few minutes.
 
This list is not a complete list of the iron content of all possible food items - if you don't see it here it just means it isn't particularly high on Iron.
 
Eat these Iron Rich Foods, combine them with Iron Absorption Enhancers, avoid Iron Absorption Inhibitors and you'll be well on your way to boost your Iron levels and get rid of those Low Iron Symptoms!
 
Breakfast Cereals
Fortified breakfast cereal is one of your best bets to boost your Iron intake and below is a short list of some of them. As you can see eating just a single serving of these will give you around 18 mg Iron, but bear in mind that the typical absorption rate of a healthy adult is only approximately 10% to 15% of dietary iron. So drink a glass of Orange juice with your cereal to boost your absorption. Also, bear in mind that the last two items in this last are dry, i.e. before you have added milk or water to them!
Ralston Enriched Bran Flakes: 27 mg/cup Kellog's Complete Oat Bran Flakes: 25 mg/cup General Mills Multi-Grain Cheerios: 24 mg/cup Kellog's All-Bran Complete Wheat Flakes: 24 mg/cup Malt-O-Meal, plain, dry: 92 mg/cup Cream of Wheat, instant, dry: 51 mg/cup

Meat
Red meat is high on iron and it comes in the heme form you body most easily absorbs; typically 15% to 35% of heme iron is absorbed by your body. Organ meats are the best sources of iron within the meat category and of these liver is probably the most popular so we've included it the list since we don't know too many people who'll eat spleen or lungs we've excluded these kinds of organs. If you like liver then go for goose liver expensive, but very nice! or at least opt for pork liver instead of beef liver. When you opt for red meat in your diet add some less standard options like Emu, Ostrich or Duck instead of beef.
Goose liver, raw: 31 mg / 100g Pork liver, cooked: 18 mg / 100g Chicken liver, cooked: 13 mg / 100g Lamb liver, cooked: 10 mg / 100g Beef liver, cooked: 7 mg / 100g Emu, cooked: 7 mg / 100g Ostrich oyster, cooked: 5 mg / 100g Quail meat, raw: 5 mg / 100g Duck breast, raw: 5 mg / 100g Beef, steak, cooked: 4 mg / 100g Beef, ground, cooked: 3 mg / 100g

Dried Fruit

Fish and Shellfish
Fish is not often considered as a good source of iron and most finfish is indeed not, only the oily fish like mackerel and sardines provide you with a decent amount of iron. So when you want to eat fish, opt for oily fish which gives you the most iron and is high in omega-3 too. When you add shellfish into the equation suddenly we find some of the best Iron Rich Foods you can find, especially clams think clam chowder. A quick comparison with the meat category shows that octopus or cuttlefish beat all the regular meats in terms of iron content and are only outdone by liver. So, it's time to add some stir fried squid to your weekly menu.
Clams, canned, drained solids: 28 mg / 100g Clams, cooked: 28 mg / 100g Fish caviar, black and red: 12 mg / 100g Cuttlefish, cooked: 11 mg / 100g Octopus, cooked: 10 mg / 100g Oyster, medium sized, cooked: 10 mg / 100g Anchovy, canned in oil: 5 mg / 100g Shrimp, cooked: 3 mg / 100g Sardine, canned in oil: 3 mg / 100g Mackerel, cooked: 2 mg / 100g

Vegetables
Vegetables are an essential part of your diet, full of essential nutrients and most people don't eat enough of them, but when it comes to Iron most vegetables are not too hot. If you choose your vegetables carefully then can use vegetables to help you boost your iron levels, especially if you include some iron absorption enhancers in your diet as the non-heme iron in vegetables is not easily absorbed by your body. Vegetables in the Top 50 Iron Rich Foods include various beans, potato skins, tomatoes and green leafy vegetables like spinach, chard and parsley. Chili con carne, which combines meat, kidney beans and tomato sauce, makes an excellent Iron Rich Recipe, but so does a white bean salad with plenty of fresh parsley and light vinaigrette.
Mushrooms, morel, raw: 12 mg / cup Tomatoes, sun-dried: 5 mg / cup Potato skins, baked: 4 mg / skin Parsley, raw: 4 mg / cup Soybeans, boiled: 9 mg / cup Spinach, boiled, drained: 6 mg / cup Tomato sauce, canned: 9 mg / cup Lentils, boiled: 7 mg / cup Hearts of palm, canned: 5 mg / cup White Beans, canned: 8 mg / cup Kidney beans, boiled: 5 mg / cup Chickpeas, boiled: 5 mg / cup Pinto Beans, frozen, boiled: 3 mg / cup Lima beans, boiled: 4 mg / cup Hummus, commercial: 6 mg / cup Swiss Chard, boiled, chopped: 4 mg / cup Asparagus, canned: 4 mg / cup Chickpeas, canned: 3 mg / cup Tomatoes, canned: 3 mg / cup Sweet potato, canned, mashed: 3 mg / cup Endive, raw: 4 mg / head

Nuts and Seeds
Nuts and seeds are great Iron Rich Foods in that they have a pretty high iron content and are so versatile that you can eat them in many ways. A quick snack on some cashew nuts is filling, healthy and gives plenty of iron - tasty too! Pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds can be easily toasted and added to a salad for a nice crunch and an iron boost. Sesame seeds are used in a variety of Asian dishes and all of these can be used in baking or as a quick addition to your breakfast cereal. Just make sure you always have some in the house and you'll soon find many ways to add them into your day-to-day food.
Sesame seeds, whole, dried: 21 mg/cup Pumpkin seeds and squash seed kernels, dried: 11 mg/cup Sunflower seed kernels, toasted: 9 mg/cup Cashew nuts, dry roasted, halves and whole: 8 mg/cup Pistachio nuts, dry roasted: 5 mg/cup Almonds, whole kernels, blanched: 5 mg/cup

Fruit
Fresh fruit is not rich in Iron, but dried fruit like apricots, peaches or prunes are great Iron Rich Snacks to eat in between meals or to add to various recipes. The one thing you must remember about fresh fruit is that most of it contains a lot of Vitamin C and since Vitamin is an Iron Absorption Enhancer eating fresh fruit or vegetables high in Vitamin C with your meal can greatly boost the amount of iron your body actually absorbs.
Apricots, dehydrated low-moisture: 8 mg/cup Peaches, dehydrated low-moisture: 6 mg/cup Prunes, dehydrated low-moisture: 5 mg/cup Olives, canned jumbo: 0.3 mg / olive Currants, dried: 5 mg/cup Apricots, dried, sulfured, uncooked: 4 mg/cup Blueberries, canned: 7 mg/cup

Iron Rich Snacks
Apart from the nuts and dried fruit there are quick and easy Iron Rich Snacks which you can simply buy in the supermarket and use as a instant Iron Booster. Below or some examples, but if you're planning to buy some bars or drinks then you need to remember to check the nutrition labels on the actual products you buy as the actual Iron content can vary greatly from brand to brand and even from product to product within the same brand.
Nestle Supligen, canned supplement drink 9 mg / can Snickers Marathon Honey Nut Oat Bar: 8 mg / bar Snickers Marathon Double Chocolate Nut Bar 8 mg / bar Snickers Marathon Multigrain Crunch Bar: 8 mg / bar Pretzels, soft: 6 mg / large Trail mix, regular: 3 mg / cup

Eggs:
Dairy products are not high in Iron, but do contain a lot of calcium and calcium has been known to act as a Iron Absorption Inhibitor so you should try and eat calcium rich foods separate from your Iron Rich Foods as much as possible. Eggs are not too high in Iron, but egg yolks are not too bad and if you can find fresh goose eggs they could be used in a great Iron Rich Breakfast!
Goose Egg, whole: 5 mg / egg Egg yolk, raw: 7 mg iron / cup Egg, scrambled: 3 mg iron / cup

Top 50 Iron Rich Foods - Boost Your Energy and Beat Low Iron Symptoms

Found out all you need to know about Iron Rich Foods and how to beat Low Iron Symptoms or recover from Iron Deficiency Anemia at http://www.ironrichfoods.info.

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Living Without Sugar - 3 Breakfast Ideas to Give You Energy Whilst Still Pleasing Your Sweet Tooth

Many of us prefer sweet foods for breakfast. But now your doctor said you mustn't have sugar any more, or you yourself decided you need to cut it out because you want to lose weight? For many people, and I admit I'm one of them, it's unthinkable to live without sugar. We know, we don't need it, but it somehow adds pleasure to our life. Sugary foods are luxuries we don't want to give up. So, what if you have to because your health demands it?

First of all, think about when you have sugar

as an energy booster to wake up in the morning
as a life saving snack when your energy level is running low
sweet foods like cookies, cakes and chocolates for pure indulgence

How sugar gives you energy

Let's focus on the first two aspects: sugar for energy. It's true that plain sugar, because it's absorbed very fast, in the stomach already, gives you a very quick energy boost. But after a very short time, this effect wears off, and you need more.

Did you know that carbohydrates as you find them in starchy foods like bread, pasta, potatoes and rice are way better energy providers, especially the complex carbs found in whole grain products? They are released and absorbed slower and over a longer period, thus giving you energy for hours instead of minutes.

Sweet sugar-free breakfast ideas

Instead of loading your breakfast with sugar, try this great strategy: Use fruity foods to satisfy your sweet tooth, and starchy foods to give you lasting energy for the day. Especially whole grain cereals or bread will do a great job. Your breakfast could look like this:

The cereal breakfast:

1 glass of orange juice (freshly squeezed, or the 100% unsweetened fruit juice out of the box)
a bowl of whole grain cereal with low fat milk
1 banana, or half a handful dried fruit mixed into the porridge

The sandwich breakfast:

1 glass of orange or other fruit juice
1 whole grain roll with jam (jam should be sugar reduced, if possible made with natural sweeteners) or honey
1 fruit

The meal-like breakfast:

1 small pancake, 2 small waffles or 2 muffins (use whole grain flour and make sure you don't use sugar, if you want to sweeten it, use honey)
fruit salad (without sugar added)
a small bowl of low fat yogurt
1 glass of fruit juice

You see, there are many ways to have a lovely sweet breakfast without sugar. The only sugar you find in these breakfast ideas is fruit sugar, which is doing much less harm to your body than the plain sugar, and honey which is healthier too. Be aware that when using honey, you only need half the amount than if using sugar as it is sweeter, and dried fruit contains more fruit sugar than the same amount of fresh fruit. But all it takes are some small changes, and you got a healthy sugar-free breakfast which won't make you miss sugar at all.

Bettina Berlin is a health professional specializing in healthy nutrition and quick cooking. Eating healthy and thus maintaining a healthy weight can significantly improve your health and help prevent many diseases. Is your life so hectic that preparing healthy food often seems impossible? Then visit http://www.elishas-quick-recipes.blogspot.com TODAY and get your FREE fast cooking tips and much delicious quick easy recipes!

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