Cornflakes are boring. All Bran is over-hyped. Branded muesli is over-priced and over-rated. Muesli is dangerous.
…some of my views on cereal-based breakfast, so I hack my muesli to make it more interesting and get better value for money.
Ingredients:
Ingredients are usually available at major supermarkets (Spar, Pick n Pay, etc.), although I don’t recall seeing the muesli crunch at Choppies. Prices are from a Spar receipt dated August ’15.
You will need:
- 1kg Jungle Oats
- 750g or 1kg Nutzy Crunch, choose your size and flavour according to availability and value for money
- 500g raisins
- Garnish
- Woolworths Granola ~2tbsp, it’s expensive stuff
- dried fruit ~1tbsp, it’s calorie dense
- Milk
Method:
- pour the oats, crunch and raisins into a tub or small bucket: ~4 litres with airtight lid
- mix well by digging a spoon to the bottom of the bucket and pulling up while turning the bucket.
- continue until it looks like this (you may find a bigger bucket is necessary for easier mixing)
Serving Instruction
- for a sensible sized portion a 175ml yogurt pot gives a 100g serving
- add milk to just cover muesli (experiment to see if you are a wet or dry person)
- garnish to taste
- Woolworths granola ~2tbsp (it’s expensive)
- Dried fruit ~2tbsp (it’s high in calories)
- allow to stand until required consistency is reached (experiment to see if you are a firm or soggy person)
- eat with care (use of nutty crunch/granola is likely to expose poor dental work)
- chew well, if you don’t the grains will be wasted. Like sweetcorn.
- floss teeth (nobody likes seeing tooth gaps full of oat particles)
Nutritional Information
Cautionary note:
You will see here that muesli is energy dense, but it’s “good energy” in that it releases slowly. This makes it a great starter before endurance exercise or avoiding mid-morning hunger pangs at work. A yogurt pot of this mix with a similar quantity of milk will give you about 25% of your daily energy needs, and the protein carb/balance is about right (no-carb/low-carb diets might be a topic for a future post).
The nutritional information labels for the Nature’s Source crunch recommends a portion size of 30g/75ml, that’s half a cup full… not exactly filling. In fact it seems to be a common “con” with many “health foods” to recommend a ridiculously small portion size.
The short story is that if you want to lose weight you need to eat less and move more.
The numbers:
For guidance only, will vary according to ingredients and serving size.
[table caption=”Per 100g of ingredient (from typical nutrition panels)” colwidth=”150,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,100″ colalign=”left|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|right”]
,Mass,Energy,Energy,Protein,Carbs,Of which sugar,Fat,Fibre,Cost
,g,kJ,kcal,g,g,g,g,g,
Oats,100,1528,382,14,57,1,7.9,12.3, P 2.15
Nature’s Source (African Sunrise),100,1751,438,10.7,60,20.8,12.5,5.8, P 5.68
Raisins,100,138,35,2,78,78.3,0.7,4.9, P 3.73
Milk (Full Cream),100,262,66,3.4,4.9,,3.4,, P 1.00
Dried Fruit,100,270,68,2,68,,0,2, P 10.00
Woolworths Granola,100,1900,475,9.7,60.4,18.9,17.4,6.5, P 8.00
[/table]
[table caption=”Total Dry Mix (mass = packet size)” colwidth=”150,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,100″ colalign=”left|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|right”]
,Mass,Energy,Energy,Protein,Carbs,Of which sugar,Fat,Fibre,Cost
,g,kJ,kcal,g,g,g,g,g,
Oats,1000,15280,3820,144,570,10,79,123, P 21.45
Nature’s Source (African Sunrise),1000,17510,4378,107,600,208,125,58, P 56.75
Raisins,500,690,173,10,390,391.5,3.5,24.5, P 18.65
Total mass,2500,33480,8370,261,1560,609.5,207.5,205.5, P 96.85
Nutritional value,100,1339,335,10,62,24,8,8, P 3.87
[/table]
[table caption=”Serving, 1 yogurt pot/175ml” colwidth=”150,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,75,100″ colalign=”left|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|center|right”]
,Mass,Energy,Energy,Protein,Carbs,Of which sugar,Fat,Fibre,Cost
,g,kJ,kcal,g,g,g,g,g,
Mike’s Muesli Mix,100,1339,335,10,62,24,8,8, P 3.87
Milk,160,419,105,5,8,0,5,0, P 1.60
Wet total,260,1758,440,16,70,24,14,8, P 5.47
,,,,,,,,,
“- add granola garnish”,25,68,17,1,17,0,0,1, P 2.50
“- add dried fruit garnish”,25,475,119,2,15,5,4,2, P 2.00
Served total,310,2301,575,19,102,29,18,10, P 9.97
,,,,,,,,,
Recommended Daily Amount,,8400,2000,50,300,,65,25,
[/table]
Recommended Daily Amount (Daily Intake, for the pedants) based on Wikipedia – Recommended Dietary Allowance.
