I love chocolate! I love peanut butter! And who doesn’t love the two mixed together?! But I am unwilling to eat a store bought Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. First off, they just taste artificial to me and coat my tongue. They are made with hydrogenated oils, which are also known as trans fats. This is the industrial process of adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oil to make them more solid. There is no safe or healthy level of trans fat to ingest. Trans fats cause inflammation and raise your LDL (bad cholesterol levels). Clogged arteries worth the 2 minute indulgence?
If that doesn’t slow down your impulse to purchase those drugstore candies, they also have TBHQ as a preservative and according to healthline.com “According to the Centers for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a well-designed government study found that this additive increased the incidence of tumors in rats. And according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), cases of vision disturbances have been reported when humans consume TBHQ. They also cite studies that have found TBHQ to cause liver enlargement, neurotoxic effects, convulsions, and paralysis in laboratory animals. Some believe BHA and TBHQ also affect human behavior. It’s this belief that has landed the ingredients on the black list of the Feingold diet, a dietary approach to managing attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Advocates of this diet say that those who struggle with their behavior should avoid TBHQ.” I don’t want to kill myself on the account of wanting to indulge in a treat. So, I made a real food version up to satisfy my love of PB and chocolate.
AND… like many chocolate giants, Hershey’s has switched over to using synthetic PGPR which is short for polyglycerol polyricinoleate, a goopy yellowish liquid made from castor beans that reduces the viscosity of chocolate. It is cheaper than raw cocoa butter and may have very negative health effects. Lab animals show liver enlargement. The FDA restrict the amount used in products, but if you are consuming many products with these emulsifiers and industrial ingredients, you are very easily exceed toxic or harmful limits. I don’t want any of it in my body!
Here is your tastier, beneficial PB-Chocolate Chia Fat Bomb!
Chocolate PB Chia Fat Bombs
Author: Briana Michel
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 24
Ingredients
1 cup of Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (or unsweet bakers chocolate and sweeten with stevia, Swerve or xylitol made from birch, not corn)
½ cup of peanut butter (or other nut butter), room temperature
¼ cup of coconut oil, room temperature
3 Tbsp chia seeds
Instructions
Melt together chocolate chips and coconut oil together and stir well
Stir in chia seeds
Drop a spoonful of melted chocolate mixture into silicon molds to fill up ⅓ of the way (do not grease molds. The silicon molds are easy to pop out when frozen)
After entire mold is filled with ⅓ covered sections, pop into the freezer to set, roughly 15 minutes. 5. Melt peanut butter and pour onto of chilled chocolate molds another ⅓ of the way (optional to press in a couple un-melted tiny chocolate chips. Omit to keep sugar content lower if that is your goals)
Put molds back into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
Re-melt remaining chocolate-chia mix and spoon or pour on top of the hardened peanut butter.
Freeze for 20-30 minutes. Keep in freezer for up to 3 weeks. Remover 5 minutes prior to wanting to enjoy them and let them sit at room temperature. Enjoy! These are best served cold but not frozen solid.
3.5.3226 Here are some of the items used in the recipe. You can also probably find these items locally, but I provide Amazon links for your convenience.