Best Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

These chocolate chip cookies are great for a desert or a snack. They are delicious, and nutritious because they are rich in fiber, omega-3, vitamins and minerals. They do have sugar, so I would not eat a ton of them, but these cookies are great for an occasional treat for you and your whole family. My kids love eating these cookies while dipping them into soy milk.

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cup of ground rolled oats

1/4 cup of freshly ground flax seed

1/4 cup of ground walnuts (or almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds etc)

2 Tbs wheat germ

1 1/3 cup brown sugar (or sucanat for healthier choice)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup softened butter (equals to 1 stick)

1/2 cup of light olive oil

1 very ripe banana (mashed)

2 large eggs

2 tsp natural vanilla extract

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Ground rolled oats, flaxseed and walnuts in the food processor.

3. Mix together whole wheat flour, ground rolled oats, ground flaxseed, ground walnuts, wheat germ, baking soda and salt.

4. Mash banana, add butter, sugar and mix well. Add light olive oil, eggs and vanilla extract.

5. Mix wet and dry ingredients together and add semi-sweet chocolate chips.

6. Spoon unto baking sheets lined with silicone mats or parchment paper. Depending on what size you want your cookies to be, you might want to use tablespoon for larger cookies and teaspoon for smaller cookies.

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

8. After 15 minutes take cookie sheets out of the oven, let the cookies cool for 10-15 minutes, and enjoy!

If you don't have light olive oil, it can be substituted with grape seed oil or canola oil.

If you don't want to use brown sugar, use sucanat, it is an unrefined sugar cane which still contains naturally occurring molasses with vitamins and minerals.

Two of the best choices for sweeteners are xylitol or stevia, instead of sugar. Both of these sweeteners don't have calories, don't spike up blood sugar and do not contribute to weight gain. Xylitol has many health benefits, and can be used instead of sugar, so can be stevia, but stevia has a bit aftertaste that associates with it. Stevia is also 300 times sweeter than sugar, so it will take some adjusting within the recipe to substitute stevia for sugar.

For people that are watching their cholesterol intake, butter can be substituted with apple sauce. Coconut oil can also be used instead of the butter, coconut is a great oil choice, it is an excellent oil to be added to your diet.

For chocolate chips, pick chocolate with at least 60% cocoa content for maximum antioxidant benefits. Also, the higher concentration of cocoa, less sugar this chocolate will have.

By adding a banana to your cookie dough, you are adding extra folate, vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, choline, phosphorus, magnesium and a generous amount of potassium. Plus it gives cookies very nice texture.

By adding flax seeds to cookies, we are adding extra fiber, Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, also phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, folate, selenium and calcium.