Natural Bulking Bars
Oats, nuts, milk and honey – what could be more natural? Some people have trouble putting on weight of any kind and these bulking bars are just the ticket. These nutritious bars are also great for people doing physical jobs or students who need to keep a quick meal in their pockets. These nutrient dense bars quickly give you the protein blast you need along with good fats and complex carbs for lasting energy. Not only do they taste as good as candy bars but they are healthy, natural, and high in protein as well. Even better, you can make these at home in five minutes WITHOUT cooking for 1/10 the cost of pre-made protein bars and weight gain products.
These healthy bulking bars have rolled oats, nonfat milk, natural peanut butter, and honey. Pretty simple and all natural. Note that the weights of each are in a simple 1:1 ratio so its easy to remember- use an equal weight of everything to make the batch size you want:
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| 16oz Oats | 16oz Powdered Milk | 16oz Peanut Butter | 16oz Honey |
To make these start by mixing up the peanut butter, honey and cocoa – it makes things easier if the peanut butter and honey are warm rather than refrigerated. Now mix in the nonfat milk powder. Now mix in the oats. You are going to need a REALLY strong spoon to mix this up, its quite the workout. Add a little water if you need to but only add enough to wet all the ingredients – don’t make it soupy! The finished firm goop should hold its shape like play-doh when you make a ball.
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| mix pb, honey & cocoa | Mix in nonfat milk powder | Now mix in the oats | Squish the goo down solid |
Now line a pan with waxed paper and squish the goo down solid by putting another piece of waxed paper on top – you can use a can to steam-roll it so its packed down hard if you want. Now let it sit in the fridge overnight to solidify before cutting it into meal sized bars!
These are called “bulking bars” for a reason, they have lots of calories in them! If you want the protein without the calories then make either my Scooby-poo bars or my meal replacement bars. These two recipes use protein powder and skip the peanut butter and honey so they are nearly 100% protein.
Just a reminder, contrary to popular opinion, you cant gain muscle just by eating “mass gain” products, “bulking bars”, or “taking” protein shakes. Once you consume more food than your body needs, it gets stored as FAT, not muscle. Many people complain that they have “been working out for years” and “haven’t gained any muscle” – if this is you then you are doing a LOT of things wrong! Please read what is required to bulk up and gain muscle, its not magic.
Is eating raw oats healthy?
Really good question! Rolled oats actually are cooked … at the factory. Oats are hard as rocks. If you have ever seen “Steel-cut oats” those are raw uncooked oats and they can break your teeth. At the factory they just chop up the uncooked oat kernels to make steel cut oats. On the other hand, to make the rolled oats you cannot just squish the oats as they would turn into powder. What they do is boil them till they are soft, squish them flat in big rollers, then dry the flakes. You can tell the difference by the cooking time. To make steel cut oats requires that you cook them for 45 minutes. Rolled oats on the other hand take less than 5 minutes to cook, because they are pre-cooked. So this is a long winded way of saying that rolled oats are cooked, just at the factory rather than in your home.