Love the way these turned out!

Hello Steemit! Hope you're all enjoying your thursday.

I'm going to talk about these cookies today, because I'm so happy with how they turned out! They're peanut butter oatmeal raisin cookies. And they only have 7 ingredients, they're all organic, vegan and sugar-free.

So I just mashed up 3 very ripe bananas, then added 1.5 cups oats, 3 tbsp of peanut butter, 1 tbsp of chia seeds, 2 tbsp maple syrup or your favourite sweetener (optional), 1 tsp of cinnamon. I stirred all these ingredients together in a large bowl. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Then shape cookies, add as many raisins as you'd like, and place on a cookie pan lined with wax paper. And bake for 13 - 15 minutes, eh voila! All done. They're so easy guys! And they're packed with good organic whole ingredients and lots of protein. I could just have one (or a few) as a meal. And I have been all week.

I've been trying to stick to eating foods that have a minimal number of ingredients, that I can read, and that I actually know what they are and how they're processed. This way I minimize the amount of "unknown" in my diet, and I also minimize the amount of processing that goes into my food. I'm trying to do this to help get rid of a bit of acne on my face, and guys it's actually working! Then in addition to this I'm staying away from sugar, mainly refined sugar. And I'm trying to only eat natural sweetners like maple syrup. Because I swear every time I have sugar in my food, a day or two later, I get a pimple. Does any one else have this happen?! Lol.

Okay so I'm a bit obsessed with maple syrup right now, and here's why. We get maple syrup from our farmer neighbors and it's amazing! The only processing it undergoes is that it gets boiled which, if you know anything about making maple syrup, is pretty standard. In other words it's pure maple syrup. It has very minimal processing! Then, on top of that, maple syrup has a glycemic index that is very low of 54. Anything with a glycemic index under 55 is considered very low. Many sweeteners like, honey and sugar, have higher glycemic indexes. Honey is 58 and sugar is 65. Okay, okay, okay, so let me explain glycemic index, in case that's what you're wondering about.

Now what does it mean if something has a low glycemic index? If the glycemic index is low then the body slowly digests, absorbs and metabolizes that substance. And if it's high then the substance moves much more quickly or even directly into the bloodstream, taking effect quickly or all at once. And that's where you get that sugar rush and sugar crash, that really messes up your body's natural functioning and metabolism. This is actually the whole reason I quit sugar. I realized that I was literally running my body from one sugar rush and crash to the next. Every time I became exhausted from one crash I'd fill my body with way to much sugar to get that rush and keep it going. This, needless to say, totally screwed up it's ability to actually absorb the nutrients in my food because of too many of these "crashes". With every crash it's almost as if the whole machine (your body) slows way down, or even stops, and at that point any absorption of nutrients gets harmed. This can also cause excessive weight gain because of all the sugar going straight into the bloodstream, and the body has no need for all that energy all at once, so it stores it as fat throughout the body.

Since quitting sugar I've lost 13 lbs, and gotten back into a weight and shape that I feel great about. (There's been a few other key changes in my diet and lifestyle that have helped with this, and I'll try to cover these in the next few stories that I share.)

So I hope you guys find this helpful and I'll keep trying to share my research and journey towards a more organic, whole-food, sugar-free, active life. Thanks for reading!