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Perfect MCT Oil - 100% Certified Organic MCTs - Unflavoured 887ml
While nuts are quite trendy to eat these days and nut butters seem to be showing up everywhere, we might have forgotten about the incredible healing powers of seeds!
Nuts are certainly nutritious, there's no doubt but they can also be heavy on digestion and energy for some people and this is why seeds might be a better option?
Like nuts, you can activate seeds for best health benefits. Activation helps to break down enzyme inhibitors such as phytic acid. Phytic acid is referred to as an "anti-nutrient", which is simply a plant compound that reduces your body's ability to absorb essential nutrients.
Activating nuts and seeds is quite a simple process and something you could do on the weekend, all you need is a bowl, some salt, some water, a sieve, a baking tray and an oven.
Activating Nuts & Seeds Process
Step 1. Soaking
Add about 1 cup of your seeds or nuts to a glass bowl, sprinkle over Himalayan or sea salt and then pour over enough water to well and truly cover them. Leave uncovered in a shady spot for the required amount of time (different seeds/nuts will require different soaking times). For the purpose of today's recipe as we will be soaking and activating sunflower seeds, they require only 2 hours of soaking time.
Step 2. Rinse and Strain
As the step suggests, take your soaked nuts/seeds and tip out into a sieve. Rinse these in cold water to remove all the cloudy-looking water. What you will be left with is gorgeous, clean seeds or nuts!
Step 3. Dry Out Slowly to Retain Nutrition
Preheat your oven to 50c. On a lined baking tray (use baking paper), spread out the nuts/seeds evenly and sprinkle chosen salt liberally over them. I don't really measure this but I would say it would be about 1 tsp?
The drying out process takes about 4 hours in total.
Each hour, be sure to take them out and give them a little shake or stir to keep the drying out process even. After 3 hours, turn the heat up to 100c for the last hour, this will ensure they are fully dried out and nice and crunchy!
I was reading something lately about seeds being a lighter option to nuts and with incredible benefits such as hormone-balance and it got me thinking...
While it's true, Perfect Supplements have a wonderful organic plant protein powder, you can't spread this on toast! So I decided to make my own activated seed butter that was completely nut-free (there aren't really any options for seed-only butters in the store).
To be honest, this seed butter was more delicious than any nut butter I've ever tried and it was relatively simple to make! Having a food processor is a must and one of the best investments in creating healthy food.
I started out with the intention to just make a plain activated sunflower seed butter but it soon turned into something else, I ended up with 2 varieties and added in some raw hemp seeds for extra flavour and omegas.
The second batch I did (using the same mixture) contained raw cacao and maple syrup because both hubby and I LOVE chocolate! 🍫 and boy was it good 🤤. We've been having this one in smoothies and on paleo toast with fresh berries and kiwi fruit.
Activated Organic Sunflower Seed Butter with Raw Hemp Seeds
(2 Versions)
- 1 cup organic sunflower seeds (activated by you or pre-purchased)
- 1 cup raw organic hemp seeds
- 1 tsp of Himalayan/sea salt
- 1/4-1/2 cup of hemp oil
- 1-2 tbsp of Perfect Organic MCT oil
- 4 heaped tbsp of raw cacao
- 2-3 tbsp of high-quality pure maple syrup (or keto sweetener*)
*Keto sweetener suggestions: Lakanto Monk fruit sweetner, pure Monk fruit powder, Erythritol
- In your food processor, add in the seeds, salt and hemp oil and process until buttery (spreadable) consistency. This can take quite awhile and requires patience but I actually found this kind of fun! 😃 The mixture will form a ball before it forms a butter and you may need to add a little more oil as you go along. Don't add to much oil though as you'll have a really oily end result!
- Once desired result, take out about half of the mixture and place it into an airtight jar and store in cool dark place (pantry). Enjoy on crackers, toast and more.
- If you were wanting to make the chocolate version (which I highly recommend for chocaholics like us), simply add in the cacao, MCT oil and your chosen sweetener and blend up until fully combined. Place this mixture into a sealed glass jar and also store in pantry out of the light.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe today and get to enjoy it. It's is certainly worth the time and effort I promise you! 😋
