OMG Date Balls

I know this isn’t typically the kind of content I publish; but humour me for a while will ya? In September I set myself a personal health and fitness goal (OMG bikini!), following a strict exercise regime that includes training for my first half marathon (OMG 21kms!) on November 2nd. For the first time in my life I’ve been really dedicated to the programme, motivated and, surprise surprise, I’m seeing results. With all the running I’ve been doing I needed something to listen to, something other than my running mix that is starting to get boring, and I happened upon the Rich Roll Podcast.

Rich Roll is an endurance athlete, wellness & nutrition advocate , lawyer and Stanford Law grad. He invites interesting guests onto his show and they shoot the breeze on a range of health and wellness topics. Right, so I run sloooowly. Which means I need a long show to listen to, and his are just that at the 2 hour mark. The first show I listened to (Beyond the Kale) gave me, well, food for thought. They made a comparison between our bodies and car gas tanks and asked why we’re particular about the quality of gas we put into our vehicles, yet less so when it comes to our bodies (on the whole).

He makes a good point.

I finished my [slow] run, got home and proceeded to spend the rest of the day lost in Pinterest. I stumbled upon a bunch of ‘clean’ (ugh I can’t believe I just used that word), natural recipes that I hope to put to the test in my endeavour to care more about what I put into my gas tank. The first was inspired by Jessica Sepel’s recipe, and I call them OMG Date Balls. I started following her recipe but ended up free-styling because it didn’t suit me 100%. I was looking for something sweet, delicious and easy to make. I’ve cut refined sugar from my diet but still get that 3PM snack attack slump, especially at the office, and I really don’t want to default to eating sh*t. These bad-boys turned out so well, here they are:

Prep time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

• 250g pitted dates
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup flax seeds
• 1/3 cup chia seeds
• 1 scoop whey protein (optional)
• 3 tbsp almond nut butter
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• desiccated coconut

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients (bar the coconut) together in a bowl. If you feel it’s too dry, add some more water. Add more seeds if it feels too wet. Roll into bite-sized balls, roll in the desiccated coconut and voila – OMG date balls! Refrigerate. Keeps for 1 week & makes +- 16 balls.

Next time I’ll add chopped nuts and some coconut oil. You can vary this up as much/little as you like, for example, replace the almond nut butter with banana, add fruit or cocoa nibs etc. This recipe is great for a little boost, particularly because of the chia seeds. These little super seeds are packed with vitamins & minerals, anti-oxidants, protein, fibre and omega-3 fatty acids. Read up on chia, the claimed health benefits are astounding.

Let me know how yours turn out!

brandslut xoxo