Raising your expectations at the breakfast table
There are lots of cereals out there to choose from, let alone mueslis and sometimes the choice is just too much to fathom. So many different branded varieties, with so many different ingredients and not all of them good. With that in mind, you might consider creating your own muesli, tailored to your dietary requirements and not forgetting one to excite your palate.
You could start off with a basic muesli base, such as our wheat-free or no added sugar muesli bases, so you know exactly what you’re starting out with. All the ingredients used in our mueslis are are listed on the packet or sack and you can also get advice in store on what might best suit you as a starting point.
Once you’ve got your muesli base, the sky’s the limit. There are many things you could add to give it a greater range of texture, taste and health benefits. You can build your muesli around these three components, so without further ado let’s look our starting point, the base.
A good healthy start
If you take our wheat-free muesli base as an example, you’ve got barley flakes, rye flakes, jumbo oats, porridge oats and oat bran (organic). Barley contains high levels of dietary fibre, helping with your digestion and selenium which is an antioxidant and good for fighting the harmful free radicals in your body which contribute to the aging process and can promote cancer. Using barley can also help reduce your LDL cholesterol level.
Looking at Rye flakes it’s difficult to know where to start, but amongst many health benefits from consumption, it has been found to be specifically beneficial to post-menopausal women at risk from high cholesterol levels and is also a good anti-cancer agent, helping your body to more effectively remove the toxins in your body that can promote cancer. Finally, you’ve got your oats. Another great source of dietary fibre and another good way for men and women to combat high cholesterol levels, the Scots haven’t been eating them all these years for nought you know!
We should also point out that our wheat-free muesli base is sugar free.
Crunchy, nutty or are you both?
To give your Muesli a bit more bite, try adding some force flakes. These add a bit of welcome crunch, a nice balance against the softness of the oats, and are high in fibre so good for your digestion. Don’t forget to make sure your flakes have no added sugar. Hold it there though, you will want to give these a miss if you are on a wheat free diet, so for those of you with wheat intolerance, go for nuts instead for your texture. Real Foods has a wide variety of raw nuts to suit all tastes. Alternatively or additionally you could go for seeds, and many of our own recipe mueslis contain sunflower kernels and pumpkin seeds. To give your digestive system a kick start, throw in some bran flakes
For another tasty texture addition, try adding some toasted coconut flakes. We use this in our exotic muesli recipe which gives it a tropical taste and again another good source of texture.
Naturally sweet
Many cereals and mueslis on offer out there have added sugar, which may not be naturally occurring. From the point of view of health, try and sweeten your muesli with fruit, giving you naturally occurring sugar in the form of fructose. A good basic source of sweetness, taste and fibre could be dates or raisins and you could also try adding chopped apricots and or dried bananas (go for the unsweetened variety of any fruit of course). Fruit doesn’t just give you your sweetness though, in it's many forms it adds another interesting texture to your palate and with over well over 50 different kinds of dried fruit available on our shelves, you’re bound to find something to spice up your muesli. Talking of which, try adding a little cinnamon or nutmeg to your recipe to further excite your taste buds.
Let’s not forget the health benefits of fruit either and many of the dried and fresh fruits available at Real Foods also have a high ORAC rating. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity and put simply, food substances with a high ORAC rating contain a higher than usual level of antioxidants, which as mentioned earlier, are a good anti-cancer and anti-aging agent as they help to reduce cell dysfunction. Antioxidants can also help prevent the onset of problems such as heart disease and diabetes.
Many of the fruit and nuts used in our own ORAC muesli recipe have a high ORAC rating and a good rule of thumb is the deeper the pigment of the fruit, the higher the ORAC rating.
To give you a helping hand, here is a list of fruit (and nuts) you might want to add to your muesli recipe which are available from Real Foods and have a high ORAC rating:
- Apples
- Blueberries
- Cherries
- Cranberries
- Prunes
- Pecans
- Pistachio nuts
- Pumpkin seeds
- Raisins
- Raspberries
- Sunflower seeds
- Walnuts
You could add to the health benefits of your bowl by adding a superfood such as mesquite or lucuma powder to your recipe. These are good superfoods to add to your bowl as they will naturally sweeten and enhance the flavour of your muesli.
Whet your appetite!
Finally, you have your muesli in the bowl, so depending on your point of view, the next logical step might be milk. There are many different varieties of milk, dairy and non-dairy available on the market. Especially relevant to those with a dairy intolerance might be the wide range of non-dairy varieties stocked by Real Foods, amongst which we have almond, hemp, millet, rice, spelt varieties and not forgetting good old soya (uht and fresh), in brands too numerous to mention here. For those who like a little more moo on their muesli we do of course have organic milk. Alternatively you could try using yoghurt instead of milk and again we have dairy and non-dairy alternatives to suit most tastes.
We hope that by reading this article, we’ve given you some inspiration in what to do with your cereal bowl to liven it up a bit, and a good spoonful of useful advice on how to do it in the most healthy way possible. Don’t forget that you can get all the advice you need in store, and you can also find health notes on our website. You can also order all of the ingredients you might want to use in the creation of your own breakfast cereal from our website www.realfoods.co.uk