Chocolate Avocado Bliss Balls

Name: Chocolate Avocado Bliss Balls
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 1/2 avocado; 150 grams cream cheese; 1/4 cup cacao powder (use cocoa as an alternative); 1/3 cup xylitol or erythritol (adjust depending on preference); 1/2 tsp vanilla essence; 1 tbsp Sugar free chocolate protein powder ((optional) ); 2 tbsp Hemp seeds for coating; 2 tbsp dessicated coconut for coating

This may be the weirdest recipe you’ve ever heard of, but for those who aren’t aware, avocados are fruit of the gods, so it makes sense to me to create more recipes that include these blissfully nutritious fruits into practical, delicious edible recipes. To hide them, I purposely used cocoa as it hides their give away green color. And so these chocolate avocado bliss balls evolved.

I know some people struggle to eat them plain. I see this first hand in my family. Even though my hubby is supposed to be on a low carb high fat diet, when he’s served avocado with his meal, he struggles to eat much of it.

And then there’s my children…hmmm, who else struggles with feeding children healthy nutritious meals without at least one of them turning their nose up at it and declaring I don’t like that!

If you live anywhere near me, you may have heard of this strategy that my children have come up with to try to avoid the good stuff, which in their minds is the bad stuff.

So I’ve had to go undercover and sneak the nutrients into their diets one meal at a time and hide it the best I can. They didn’t even like me adding capsicum to their spaghetti bolognaise sauce.

Anyways, enough of my struggles. I thought it would be a great idea to share another recipe that I have come up with using avocados in an attempt to help increase the healthy fats into every day families. Thus increasing healthier lives and hopefully reducing the stress of parents around the world (fingers crossed).

Benefits of Avocados

Why may you ask do I bother persisting with my kids food choices when they are so darn fussy. I have cried over this at times over the years. As tempting as it might be for some to just give in and not add the healthy things to their bowls, I just can’t do that. Although I’m not an organic, 100% real foods kinda mum here. I’m realistic and know my limits. So if I give in and allow them to have chicken nuggets, I cringe, knowing there’s no nutrition in those things. But also allow myself a night off here and there and make sure they have something more nourishing in their lunch box or for dinner the next night.

So the reason avocados are so important is they are worth their weight in gold. Well, when following a low carb high fat diet, you need to know which fats are okay to eat to get your macros in the right balance. Avocados allow you to do this with their healthy fat content of 14.66 grams per 100 grams. It consists mostly of oleic acid which is the monounsaturated fat that is attributed to its health benefits. This fat is known to reduce inflammation in the body. That means if you have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, have high cholesterol among other inflammatory related illnesses, then avocados can help in reducing inflammation and create healthier insides.

Other benefits of the humble avocado is that it contains lots of nutrients:

chocolate avocado bliss balls

Potassium

When you’re following a ketogenic diet and if anyone says that you’re missing out on potassium because you don’t eat bananas, then you don’t need to fret or stress. Eating avocados will help ensure you aren’t missing out on this valuable nutrient. Because avocados contain MORE potassium than bananas!

Avocados contain 487mg potassium vs Bananas 358 mg per potassium per 100 grams

Potassium is important for bodily functions at the cellular level. Things like positively charged ions. This helps with the electrical properties that our bodies need including muscular contractions and nerve signals. It also helps regulate and maintain a regular heart beat.

Potassium also helps prevent strokes, so including this fruit on a regular basis in your diet may help prevent this scary event. This nutrient has also shown promise in preventing osteoporosis and kidney stones.

There have been numerous studies that have shown that consuming foods high in potassium reduces blood pressure. This is handy to know for how to prevent cardiac issues.

It also helps to reduce water retention. Maybe have a few avocados when you’re premenstrual ladies. If you’re also craving chocolate around this time, these avocado bliss balls may come in handy.

So if you have been worrying about possibly missing out on important nutrients from not eating foods such as bananas, it helps to know where to find the keto friendly sources and find ways to incorporate them in your way of eating. I’ve created other recipes using avocados too.

Cream cheese

Another popular ingredient in the keto world is the humble cream cheese. It also contains healthy fats. For a review of what are healthy fats, go here.

Although cream cheese contains saturated fats, research has found that saturated fats aren’t as bad as originally thought. Here’s some research if you’re interested. The nutritional value of cream cheese is it’s vitamin A, calcium and protein. So to keep your macros in the right balance by including cream cheese can also help with the high fat, medium protein, low carb ratios of keto living.

Cacao

Cacao is another nutrient dense food to add into your diet as it contains more calcium than cow’s milk! It also has antioxidant properties as well as reduces depression symptoms with it’s magnesium content. No wonder chocolate helps boost our moods when we’re feeling low! It also helps with stress management, lowers blood pressure and improves heart health.

For clean organic cacao click below to ensure your cacao doesn’t have any nasties from the growing process and instead has only what nature intended.