For Foods Sake - Chocolate Energy Bars p129

[CreamPuff63]

Mmn, very nice. Made this tonight after dinner and DS kept wanting to cut a piece before I had even put the ganache on top. Anyway, once he went to bed I cut DH and myself a little bit each...yum! Love the nuttiness and chocolate combo. Not sure how I could justify eating it for a brekky replacement with the chocolate, but if I woke up and needed a good excuse to have a slice that early in the morning I guess I could (not necessarily should)  But tonight I have to sleep with one eye open in case DS gets up and raids the fridge during the night  Its a definite 5/5

[Tasty]

The name of the recipe alone sounds yum! I wonder if Tenina can post a couple of recipes from her book for free for those of us who don't buy things straight up. I'm being patient and waiting for the app to come out.

[CreamPuff63]

Tasty, I linked up some of the recipes from her website that she has included in her book. If anyone is aware of a recipe that I have overlooked please let me know and I will link. Just click on the recipe that has been hyperlinked in the Contents list here. This recipe is one of them 

[judydawn]

That was great thinking CP.  It never hurts to have sample recipes from a book available - as we know, it gives people a taste of what's to come if they buy the book.

[Tasty]

Thanks for doing that, CP!

What is maca powder and where do you get it from?

[cookie1]

I looked at these CP and knew I would eat too many.

Thanks for the question Tasty. I don't know what it is either.

[Wonder]

There has been a conversation on here about Macca powder before. It proivdes energy along with other things. I think it maybe from Peru as when I was over there last year it was everywhere.

[cookie1]

Thanks. I'll see if I can find it.
Spanner informed us all about macca powder sometime ago. I've copied the information here
Rather than hormone replacement therapy (HRT), millions of women are putting their faith in a cruciferous root vegetable from Peru Called maca.

WHAT IS IT?
Maca is a dehydrated, cruciferous root vegetable, and not a drug. It is a benign, medicinal food which has been in use for 10,000 years, possibly more, and has had ample time to be judged effective. Today, dried Maca roots are ground to powder and sold in drug stores in capsules as a medicine and food supplement to increase physical stamina and fertility.

WHAT’S IN IT?
 Initial analysis of Maca indicates that it contains glucosinolates which have a positive effect on fertility. Proteins, as polypeptides, make up 11 per cent of the maca root; calcium makes up 10 percent and magnesium and potassium are present in significant amounts. other minerals include iron, silica and traces of iodine, manganese, zinc, copper and sodium. Vitamins in maca are thiamine, riboflavin and ascorbic acid. The amino acid proteins in maca include aspartic acid, glutamic acid, serine, histidine, glycine threolline, cystine, alanine, arginine, tyrosins, valine, methionine, isoleucine, lysine, proline, hoproline and sarcosine.

BENEFITS OF MACA
Menopausal symptoms: hot flashes, tender breasts, sleeplessness and emotional upsets, "brain fog", vaginal dryness.
Osteoporosis: significant bone rebuilding, improvement in bone density.
Energy booster: Balances the endocrine system - thyroid, pituitary and adrenal glands.
Male impotence
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Period problems: Pain, PMS, flooding and/or scant flow
American and Peruvian doctors have brought this extraordinary remedy to the attention of the Western world. Once in a decade a remedy used by native peoples for thousands of years comes to our attention and it seemed so important to health that we wonder how we ever got along without it. Maca is that kind of supplement. Now women have an alternative to hormone replacement therapy drugs. Maca works in an entirely different and more satisfactory way for most women than phytoestrogen herbs like black cohosh and liquorice root. And men, too, find that maca can counteract the difficulties they may experience in maintaining good sexual relationships as they age, due to a general slowing down in the output of the endocrine glands.
RESEARCH
Peruvian medical doctors say that maca root works in a fundamentally different way than HRT, promoting optimal functioning of the hypothalamus and the pituitary, thereby improving the functioning of all the endocrine glands.

They isolated four alkaloids from the maca root and carried out animal studies with male and female rats given either powdered maca root or the alkaloids. females receiving either root powder or alkaloids showed multiple egg follicle maturation, while in males, significantly higher sperm production and motility rates were noted than in control groups.

They established that it was the alkaloids in the maca root, not its plant hormones, that produced fertility effects on the ovaries and testes of the rats. "These effects are measurable within 72 hours of dosing the animals," they said. They deduced that the alkaloids were acting on the hypothalamus-pituitary axis, which explains why both male and female rats were affected in a gender-appropriate manner. This also explains why the effects in humans are not limited to ovaries and testes, but also act on the adrenals, giving a feeling of greater energy and vitality, and on the pancreas and thyroid as well.

Implications of the discovery of the pituitary-stimulating effects of maca are enormous. What it means is that hormone replacement therapy - even the natural varieties - will no longer be the gold standard for optimising health from a holistic point of view.

NATURAL VIAGRA
Doctors Malaspina, Muller and Chacon, as well as doctors from the USA and Canada, also have good news for men who are suffering age-related sexual dysfunction.

They can forget expensive, possibly dangerous Viagra. Maca works extremely well, and safely.

Dr Jorge Aguila Calderon, Dean of the Faculty of Human Medicine at the National University of Federico Villareal in Lima, prescribes maca for a wide variety of conditions, including osteoporosis and the healing of bone fractures in the very elderly. He says, "Maca has a lot of easily absorbable calcium in it, plus magnesium, and a fair amount of silica, which we are finding very useful in treating decalcification of bones in children and adults."

Dr Calderon has also helped patients overcome male impotence, male sterility and female sterility by employing maca therapy. Additional problems he treats with maca are rickets, various forms of anaemia, menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats, climacteric and erectile difficulties in men, premature ageing, and general states of weakness, such as chronic fatigue.

Another health professional using maca is Dr Garry F. Gordon, President of the International College of Advanced Longevity Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. He said: "Using maca myself, I experienced a significant improvement in erectile tissue response. I call it ‘nature’s answer to Viagra’.

"What I see in maca is a means of normalising our steroid hormones like testosterone, progesterone and oestrogen. Therefore, it has the capability to forestall the hormonal changes of ageing. It acts on men to restore them to a healthy functional status in which they experience a more active libido. Lots of men and women who previously believed their sexual problems were psychological, are now clearly going to look for something physiological to improve their quality of life in the area of sexuality.

Of course, as someone interested in longevity, I’m aware that mortality comes on much sooner for those individuals whose sexual activity is diminished or nonexistent. I believe that people who engage in sex twice a week, or more, live longer. I’ve found sexual activity to a reliable marker for overall ageing."

The Importance of Maca in the History of Peru
Maca’s cultivation goes back perhaps five millennia. It was an integral part of the diet and commerce of the high Andes regions. When they controlled that particular South American area, the Incas found maca so potent that they restricted its use to their Royalty’s court. Upon overrunning the Inca people, conquering Spaniards became aware of this plant’s value and collected tribute in maca roots for export to Spain. Maca was used as an energy enhance and for nutrition by the Spanish Royalty as well. But eventually knowledge for maca’s special qualities died out, being preserved only in a few remote Peruvian communities. In the 1960’s and later in the 1980’s, German and North American scientists researching botanicals in Peru, rekindled interest in maca through nutritional analyses of what was designated as ‘the lost crop of the Andes’. The publication of a book by that name introduced maca to the world. At an international conference in 1991, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United nations recommended that Peruvians should return to eating traditional, native Andean foods. Maca was included in the FAO list as a means of combating nutritional problems being caused by people switching to processed foods and high-sugar drinks. The reintroduction of maca has established healthy eating once again in the Peruvian diet.

 
 
 So CP did you use the m acca powder?

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[Tenina]

The name of the recipe alone sounds yum! I wonder if Tenina can post a couple of recipes from her book for free for those of us who don't buy things straight up. I'm being patient and waiting for the app to come out.

Give in to temptation Tasty…the app will be a while, and well worth it no doubt, but a bit of a wait...

[CreamPuff63]

I bought the Macca powder from the health shop. I always pop a bit in smoothies whenever I make them.

[Bedlam]

Thanks CP and Cookie
Sounds a worthwhile purchase, maca powder

[hools003]

I've just bought some maca gold powder 150g for $30 from the health food shop.

[CreamPuff63]

yep...the price of feeling good does not come cheaply

[hools003]

True CP! I only bought it for the energy bars, but after reading the benefits, I added 1/4 tsp to my Greek yoghurt at lunch time! Think I'll be buzzing if I make the bars

[judydawn]

Review from Jaclom taken from another posting 21/2/12

I made the energy bars today..  I processed everything up though- my kids aren't keen on chunky nuts.  I had whole almonds, skin on, so milled down you won't pick the skins.  They are YUM!  Have told my girls they can have them for beakfast with a glass of milk- they think I've gone mad letting them have chocolate for breakfast!