I've been reading a lot about the health benefits of coconut oil, so I decided to make a yummy paleo energy bar. I just sort of improvised with all the ingredients:

about 1.5 cups coconut oil
1/2 cup almond butter
handful almond flour
handful chopped dates
handful sultana raisins
handful chopped walnuts
handful chopped pecans
handful ground unsweetened coconut

Melted the coconut oil and almond butter together then mixed everything else in with it. I put it all in a pan and into the fridge until it solidified. I just ate one with my breakfast and it was SOOOOOO good. If you make it feel free to experiment with your favourite fruit/nut combo! I bet cranberries, dried apples, cinnamon, cloves etc would make tasty bars too.

They will be great for taking on winter snowshoe expeditions and for snacking on at the office!

Thank you ! This sounds delicious, I'll try it as soon as I can find some almond butter.

Thanks for the innovative idea - being new to neander/paleo-style eating, and still waiting for my book to be shipped across the Atlantic (!), my meals are still somewhat uncertain and experimental. I did not have all your ingredients, but simply blended together macadamia butter, coconut shavings, dried apple, raisins and a hint of cinnamon and ate it like granola - yeehaa!

If you believe in coconut oil, you should visit Indonesia - instead of the bleached and flavourless version that most countries offer, you can get the real thing there - they drink the 'milk' of the green coconut and then eat the very slim, soft and juicy coconut meat, or they let it ripen until the coconut is harder and more oily. If the cook out coconut oil, the coconut pieces become a brown, sweetish and fudgy mass of unputdownable snacks! But back to the health benefits - I once read an account of a Frenchman who was sent to one of the penal colonies on the islands of South America after being (wrongfully) found guilty of murder (yonks ago). At some stage he was in solitary for months - something which usually killed or forever broke a prisoner. One of his friends managed to have one coconut smuggled in to him every day and this diet helped him not only to survive his solitary confinement, but to actually surprise the wardens with his health when they (something like 18 months later) finally opened his cell door and allowed him to go outside. Good stuff - probably the most versatile plant on Planet Earth.

Mmm this looks yummy!

Gonna have to get some almond butter and coconut oil.