Eating muesli every day never gets boring because there is no end to the possible variations. The recipe below will get you started. Experiment and make any additions, deletions or substitions that strikes your fancy.
Every morning for breakfast we eat a bowl of my homemade muesli with fresh fruit and yoghurt.
Sometimes we just add this oats-based cereal to a fruit smoothy.
Whole rolled oats have a low glycemic index and they help to control blood sugar by slowing the absorption of carbohydrates.
Loaded with soluble fiber, they aid digestion and prevent constipation, reduce bad cholesterol while increasing good cholesterol and have a detoxing effect in the colon, guarding against colon cancer.
The most interesting and unheralded benefit of eating whole unprocessed oats is the effect on the immune system. Oats increase the natural production of your own killer cells which help fight stress-related conditions.
So put down that bowl of sugar-laden, highly processed totally goodness-deficient cereal and eat a healthy bowl of oats!
Why shouldn't you eat your muesli with milk?
Well it depends on whether the milk is organic. Do you know if the cows are free-range or fed hormones and anti-biotics? Then there is the damaging effects of pastuerization and homogenization.
These same issues apply to yoghurt unless it is truly organic.
To a cup (or less) of your home-made muesli mix, add fresh fruit and natural organic unsweetened yoghurt or kefir.
Instead of pouring on milk, try fruit juice (squeeze an orange), herbal tea (mint, chamomile or green) or make your own almond milk.
The great thing about a muesli mixture is the wide variety of grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruit that you can use to meet your own taste preferences. Here's a shopping list of variations.
Granola is muesli that has been mixed with some sweetener and lightly baked. The process tends to make the muesli less healthy, especially if you overbake it. High heat oxidizes the natural oils in some foods turning it into trans fat which leads to bad cholesterol.
If you must have granola, mix freshly squeezed orange juice into your muesli...just enough to dampen it lightly. You don't want a wet or soggy mixture. Spread the muesli on a cookie sheet and bake it in a very slow oven (300 F or 150 C) for 20 minutes, stirring and turning at 10 minutues.
