We Love Balls!

This recipe comes straight from our new favorite San Diego-based health and lifestyle blogger, Alisa Studer, Founder of The Good F Word. Here, she’s talking all about protein-filled balls.

RELAX. Get your mind of of the gutters…

From Alisa:Protein balls are my new obsession and I have the whole family hooked. There are many different recipes and they are all packed full of healthy yumminess. Studies show that consuming protein:

– Boosts energy levels
– Satiates and keeps you full longer
– Promotes muscle repair and growth
– Uses more calories to digest than carbohydrates
– Provides amino acids your body needs to build and maintain muscle
– Now on to the good stuff – below is my go to recipe, you can add nuts, raisins, yogurt chips, whatever sounds delicious to you. You can’t go wrong!

Ingredients
1/2 cup natural peanut butter

1/3 cup Organic honey

1 cup Gluten free oats

1/2 cup chocolate protein powder

1 scoop powdered greens (optional but great for the added nutrition boost)

1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions
Mix all ingredients together and roll into balls, refrigerate for 2 hours before eating. Keep balls in the refrigerator or make extra and freeze them.

I am always looking to make recipes lower in calories, see my post, Counting Calories, A Cautionary Tale. However, I don’t want to sacrifice taste, this version of protein balls manages to be less in calories and just as tasty!

Lower Calorie Version with Powdered Peanut Butter

Ingredients
1 cup powdered peanut butter

1/3 cup of water – add water slowly, depending on brand of PB you may need a little more or less, should be consistency of regular peanut butter.

1 Tbls Organic honey

1 and 1/2 cups Gluten free oats

1 and 1/2 cups Puffed Rice Cereal

1/2 cup Vanilla protein powder

1/4 cup of raisins

Note – This recipe will be much stickier and harder to roll into balls than when made with regular peanut butter but is 1/3 the calories.

Directions
Mix powdered peanut butter, protein powder, honey and water. Remember to slowly add the water as you may not need as much as stated. Once your mixture is the consistency of regular peanut butter add the oats, rice puffs and raisins. Mix well with a wooden spoon. You can try balling with your hands but since these are pretty sticky I use a cookie dough scoop. Refrigerate for 2 hours before eating. Can be frozen or kept in refrigerator for up to a week.

See the original post HERE and stay up to date with all Alisa’s healthy recipes and tips!