Super Immune Boosting Berry Bars (GF) (V)

The reason I call this super is because the ingredients do have some super powers. I’ve been studying super foods for a while and really dove deep into this book, “Eat to Beat Disease” by William Li and he has some profound research on some of these foods so I got inspired to start creating a few fun recipes with the super foods!

First, let’s talks how to re-generate your health through foods.

Now, we all want to live as long as possible right? But also maintain that vitality as long as possible so we can enjoy our quality of life. That requires eating the right foods!

Science is telling us that we can counteract the effects of aging through foods that stimulate our stem cells to act like they once did in our youth! Imagine that?!?

Selecting the right foods can help kick your stem cells in action to help grow muscles, maintain vigor, and slow the ravages of aging. Not only do these stem cells keep you youthful, but they can also regenerate tissues damaged by aging.

While it seems counter intuitive, eating chocolate is in fact a cell-recruiting food. Cocoa powder contains bio actives called flavanols. Various studies through the University of California have been done on this and the results were pretty amazing.

Chocolate is one of the foods that is being revealed to increase our body’s regenerative power! “The stem cells in bone marrow, skin, the heart, and other organs can be called into action by what and how we eat.” - Dr. William Li.

So of course I took this to heart and wanted to prepare a food with chocolate, surprise, surprise! But also wanted to incorporate other stem cell - boosting foods! Some of the other ingredients are foods high in resveratrol which is a bio active and acts as a natural fungicide to fight fungi and destroy the plant. So, naturally this bio active is first and foremost part of a plant’s health defense system.

When we as humans consume resveratrol, different types of human cells are stimulate and the bio active influences their behavior.

Resveratrol is present in a number of foods like blueberries, cranberries, grapes, peanuts, pistachios and even wine! Yes, I’m saying WINE is good for you! In moderation that is:)

So my inspiration for this recipe was from this book that I found to be a wealth of information! I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups gluten free whole grain oats

• 1/3 cup pumpkin seeds - raw

• 2 heaping tbsp raw cacao powder

• 1/3 cup raw dried cranberries

• 1/4 cup dried blueberries

• 1/2 cup dried apricots

• 2 tbsp hemp seeds

• 2 tbsp chia seeds

• 3 tbsp maple syrup

• 2/3 cup almond milk

Directions:

Blend ingredients in food processor until mixed well.

Line pan with parchment paper

Place mixture from processor into pan with parchment paper and smooth out using rolling pin or another flat surface. Make approx 1/4” thick.

Refrigerate for approx 1-2 hours

Remove from fridge and take round cookie cutters - or I used a small glass jar lid for cutting these and make about 8-10 “cookies” approx 2-3” in diameter.

Place cookies into reusable and sealed plastic container layered with parchment paper and keep refrigerated.

I hope you enjoy! For more recipes visit my Instagram @AngieReneeFitLife and let me know what you would like to see or if you have tried these! I’d love to hear your feedback below!

Thanks for following along!

XX

Angie