Homemade Fiber Bars

In today's world, sometimes it can be hard to eat enough fiber. Speaking as someone who cooks for one, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy fruit/veggie intake. They're expensive, they go bad quickly, I don't like going to the grocery store...

In an effort to increase my fiber, I tried those Fiber One bars. I don't know about the general population, but those bars most decidedly do not agree with my digestive system. So - why not make my own? Ones that don't have something called "chicory root extract."

If you really want more information on what that stuff does, just go do a quick google search. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Let's pretend this is an Instagram photo and not just me taking an out of focus one.

Before I go into the recipe, I want to give you some fiber advice. If you start upping your intake, you need to also up how much water you drink. Unless you already drink 8 glasses a day. And if you do, who the heck are you? That just seems like an epic amount of water intake to me. Though we must be reminded, not all water intake comes from just glasses of water. Okay, that makes me feel better.

Homemade Fiber Bars
Printable Recipe

3 cups bran cereal, like All Bran or Fiber One
2 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/2 cups wheat germ (or ground flax seed)
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow fluff
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
4 ox (about 1/4 cup) white chocolate chips

Place marshmallow fluff and condensed milk in a microwavable bowl and microwave at 50% power for 3 minutes. Stir in the white chocolate chips and mix until melted and smooth.

Meanwhile, mix together dry ingredients. Pour the wet over the dry and mix until all moistened.

Press into a 15x13 cookie sheet lined with foil and sprayed with cooking spray (you really want to do the cooking spray).

With dampened hands (you really want to dampen your hands too), press down evenly across the pan. Allow about 30 minutes to firm up, and cut into 24 bars.

Store in an airtight container.

(via From Apples to Zucchini)

In photos:

Marshmallow fluff on top of condensed milk.

Dry ingredients. I used ground flax seed instead of wheat germ because I happen to have a lot of it. I suspect the wheat germ would've made for a more robust bar than the flax seed, since the flax is finer.

Fluff and milk all mixed together.

And mixing the dry and the wet together, you get this sticky stuff.

Press it into the pan. It's sticky. The damp hands help not get it just on your hands.

A couple finished bars.

I will say that I would probably try these with the wheat germ in future. Flax seeds have a specific, and kind of overpowering, taste to them. While it's not necessarily bad, and perhaps you are a fan of the taste of flax seeds, for me... meh. I don't mind when they are baked into things and you can't really taste them, but otherwise I have a hard time.

I'd say that these would also be good if you added some dried fruit or regular chocolate chips, because they can be a little plain. But if you're just looking for some fiber bars without a lot of hoopla, these fit the bill.

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