A Recipe for Muesli

Loving the Swiss

As you’ve likely heard, the beautiful wife is half-Swiss.  The tricky part for me is to figure out just which parts are Swiss.  For example, she’s on the petite side, as the Swiss often are, so give that a check.  On the other hand, while she loves the mountains she doesn’t like to climb them, so that’s a mix.  One thing is uniquely Swiss—she defends her views without getting into wars.   She also loves chocolate, so her mouth must be Swiss.  But now that I think about it, I’ve never heard her yodel.

What brought Switzerland to mind was a blog comment several months ago from Julie, a girl we knew in her youth, now living in Zurich, Switzerland.  (Look here for a typical dinner menu.) I went back and reread her impressions about the Swiss, world leaders in longevity:

“I was blown away how health conscious the Swiss are . . . fast food is almost nonexistent . . . sugar just isn’t a staple in their diet . . . desserts aren’t even sweetened.  They eat little meat . . . and meat is outrageously expensive (boneless chicken @ $15/lb).”

Bircher Muesli

Well, their approach to health is just one more reason I find the Swiss endearing.  Which, because I was looking for a recipe with grains, brings us to their breakfast cereal, muesli.  Muesli is an uncooked mixture of oats, fruits, nuts, and seeds.  Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner (1867-1939), a Swiss nutrition reformer a century ago, invented muesli for patients in his health clinic. 

Dr. Bircher-Benner lived before science had much to say about nutrition, which saved him a lot of confusion.  But he observed the hardy vitality of those who lived in the Alps and ate traditional foods, including dairy foods, rye and oats, wild berries, summer vegetables, with occasional meat.  The native diet led him to invent Bircher muesli.  He also convinced his followers to eschew meat and white breads in favor of fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, preferably uncooked. 

I found this original recipe for Bircher muesli:

Ingredients:

• 1 T rolled oats, soaked in 2–3 T water, or apple juice
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 T  cream
• 1 apple, preferably a sour variety, finely grated
• 1 T ground hazelnuts

Directions:

Soak oats in water or apple juice for 2-8 hours.  Before breakfast, combine lemon juice and cream.  Stir in oats, grated apple, and top hazelnuts. 

A Muesli Recipe

I also found a box of imported Familia Swiss Muesli at the local health food store.  It was a little expensive by the box; however, because it’s dense, it’s cheaper per ounce than many packaged cereals.  I liked the taste but it violated our more-fiber-than-sugar rule (14 gm sugar; 4 gm fiber), so I wanted my own recipe. 

Traditional recipes often include rye flakes (a grain common to Switzerland’s difficult terrain) with the oats.  I decided to stick with oats plus flax seeds, to add some omega-3 fat.  (If you soak overnight, the flax seed is soft enough to eat whole, but you can also grind fresh at the time of use.)  Likewise, older Swiss recipes use hazelnuts but I substituted chopped almonds, more common here and rich in vitamin E.  Many add vanilla and a dash of cinnamon.  Fruit typically includes apples and currants in season or dried fruits in winter. 

Because the juice of local fruits is often used with Swiss muesli instead of milk, we tried four forms of liquid, all soaked overnight in the refrigerator.  Test #1 used water, the most common method for oatmeal; #2 used milk, #3 had apple juice, and #4 followed the Bircher recipe of cream with lemon juice, a sort of yogurt.  Before breakfast we added grated apples, raisins and dried mango pieces, and sliced almonds. 

Everyone makes their oatmeal with water but the beautiful wife preferred #2 and #3; #4 was too tart.  I liked them all but I especially liked how muesli is another way to avoid the cost (as well as the sugar and chemical additives) of packaged cereals. 

Skip’s Swiss Muesli (feeds 2 adults)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 C rolled oats
• 2 T flax seed
• 1 C water, milk, or natural juice
• 1 apple, grated
• ¼ C fresh berries, or 2 T raisins or dried fruit
• 3 T chopped almonds, walnuts or pecans
• 1 T coconut flakes (optional)
• Dash of vanilla (1/8 tsp)
• A shake of cinnamon

Directions: 

1. Soak oats and flaxseed with liquid; use the refrigerator if milk.
2. In the morning add grated apple, berries or chopped fruit, nuts, optional coconut, and spices.
3. Voila—you’ve got a healthy breakfast full of whole grain, fruits, and nuts, with lots of natural fiber and no added sugar.  Stir, add milk, cream, or juice, and serve.

The End of Packaged Cereal

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was the American equivalent of Dr. Bircher-Benner.  A century ago they were comrades-at-arms in the opening battles of the nutrition reformation.  Kellogg partnered with his brother Will to invent a healthier breakfast cereal, but they broke up over a critical nutrition issue—whether to improve sales by adding sugar.  John left the business and Will’s company became the sugary breakfast behemoth of our day—the Kellogg Company. 

Did I say behemoth?  I should have said dinosaur.  With the Breakfast Compote, our first recipe, and Skip’s Swiss Muesli we now have two healthy options for starting your day.  There are still a few cereals that meet our health rule—more-fiber-than-sugar—but 95% of the packaged cereals are a toxic use of grains and will go the way of the dinosaur in the food reformation.

This morning I read an article on PBS about rampant tooth decay in the villages of El Salvador.  The native foods I remember from living there have been replaced, it turns out, by Food Inc’s products.  They’re drinking soda instead of water, and eating packaged candy and chips instead of mom's tortillas with frijoles.  We’ll come back to this question in a future post—how did the Swiss discover healthy foods while the Salvadorians lost their food traditions?  Forget about the wars that rage—the loss of food traditions is the tragedy of our time.

Please comment:  Share your favorite healthy breakfast.

Trouble in the Cereal Aisle

In “The Whole Darn Grain” I promised to visit the local grocery store and list the package cereals that met our Healthy Change #3: 

This rule is a simple device for selecting healthy breakfast cereals.  It works for processed foods as well.  Some, for example, have noticed that their “whole wheat” bread has more added sugar than fiber.  (Stay tuned; in a later post we’ll look at healthy breads.)

If you're wondering where to find the sugar and fiber amounts on your cereal at home, see the nutrition facts on the side of the cereal box. Under "Total Carbohydrates" it lists the fiber and the sugar (see the area circled in green below).

The logic behind this Healthy Change follows the daily dictums of three whole-grain servings and limited sugar consumption (6 tsp. max for women, 9 tsp. max for men, per the AHA).  Plus you get all the other benefits of whole grains, including fiber.  When little sugar is pre-added, the cereal can be sweetened and upgraded by adding fresh fruit in the home.

Here are the 8 cereals that met our rule and 5 that were close, out of the 128 package cereals inspected in a local store (Ralph’s, the cereal section was 60 feet long!).  The first number is the grams of fiber, the second is the grams of sugar:

     Nature’s Path Flax plus Multibran,  5/4

     Weetabix Whole Grain Biscuit, 4/2

     Kashi Go Lean Original, 10/6  (Soy is 1^st ingredient listed.)

     Kashi Heart to Heart, 5/5

     Post Grape Nuts, 7/5

     General Mills Kix, 3/3

     Post Shredded Wheat (spoon size), 6/0

     Ralph’s Shredded Wheat (spoon size), 7/<1

     Kellogg’s All Bran, 10/6

     Ralph’s Bran Flakes, 5/5

     General Mills Cheerios, 3/1

     Ralph’s Toasted Oats, 3/1

     General Mills Wheat Chex, 5/5

For the typical family concerned about health and value, hot cereals cooked at home from bulk whole grains are the best choice.  You can buy grains for a dollar or less per pound versus paying three to five dollars a pound for the less-healthy packaged cereals.  Keep a package or two of the store-bought cereals for occasional variety or when you’re unusually rushed. 

If you have a favorite healthy package cereal not on this list, please comment. It may not have been in the store we checked.

The Whole Darn Grain

The previous posts addressed what we eat too much of: sugar and trans fats.  This post is about what we eat too little of: whole grains.  Let’s look at wheat.  We eat more wheat than any other grain, about 140 pounds annually per the USDA.  In the 1880s a new method—the roller mill—was introduced for processing wheat.  What the roller mill did more efficiently than the old stone mills was to remove the most nutritious part: the germ and bran.  Germ and bran are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, lignans, antioxidants, and other live-giving phytonutrients.  Modern bleached flour, lacking these natural nutrients, is a nutritional tragedy—it keeps a long time on the shelf, but it won’t sustain health. 

For over a century nutritionists have decried the removal of natural nutrients from the nation’s flour and warned of dire consequences.  At the start of WWII eight vitamins and minerals were suddenly added because of the poor health of inducted soldiers.  There was no scientific evidence that a few synthetic supplements would replace the many nutrients removed; it was simply a wartime decision.  My Dad was a true believer in whole grains; he made our breakfast, baked great bread, and taught us this couplet:

            The whiter the bread,
            The sooner you’re dead.

Scientists have found truth in this saying.  Today there is a movement to salvage what was lost: the Department of Health in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans counseled returning to a diet of whole grains, asking for 3 servings daily.  We can do better.  Studies show that 80% of Americans consume less than one daily serving.  Whole grains are protective of many chronic diseases, as shown in the following studies:

•   Chronic diseases (Burkitt 1975)

•   Cancer (Jacobs 1998; Slavin 2000; Fung 2005)

•   Atherosclerosis (Malik 2007)

•   Coronary heart disease and stroke (Liu, 1999; Truswell 2002; Jacobs 2004; Flight 2006; Mellen 2008)

•   Weight gain and diabetes (Liu 2003; Venn 2004)

•   All-cause mortality (Jacobs 2000; Steffen 2003)

Here is a rule that will help in selecting healthy foods made from whole grains.  At first I used it to select a healthy breakfast cereal, but it can be applied to any cereal product, including chips, crackers and bakery items:

A warning about the reality of our food world: much of the stuff in the center of our grocery stores isn't healthy per this rule.  Among breakfast cereals Old Fashioned Quaker Oats complies.  Post Shredded Wheat biscuits are good too (but not the modern bite size ones coated with sugar).  Later this week I'll check the breakfast cereal section of my grocery store and post a list of qualifying "healthy" cereals.  It'll be short.

A caution about gluten intolerance, including Celiac disease:  Celiac disease is a serious life-threatening illness that requires careful avoidance of grains with gluten, including wheat.   Less than 1% of Americans have this condition but incidence has increased dramatically in the last decade.  The cause of the disease and the reason for the sudden growth is unknown, but the modern diet is a likely factor.  If you suspect you have this disease (it’s difficult to diagnose), consult your doctor.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

healthy recipe #1: breakfast compote

Eating those commercial breakfast cereals is as American as, well, dental cavities.  Sorry, it’s a sad analogy.  Being a cost-conscious guy, over the years I have fumed at paying dollars per pound for store-bought products made of grains costing pennies per pound.  But my greater concern had to do with the unhealthiness of those products.  So I created a breakfast we call Breakfast Compote.  Composed of whole grains, nuts, and fruits, it’s not only healthier; it’s cheaper than the store-bought junk.  And it’s pretty quick; our compote can be made in less than 10 minutes (with a little practice).  This recipe is for two hungry people:

1. Prior day: To 1-1/4 cups hot water, add ¼ cup of cracked whole grains in a pan.  Soak over night.  (Our local whole foods store offers a nine-grain mixture, mostly cracked wheat.  After finishing breakfast, I prepare the mixture for the next day and place it on the back of the stove to soak.  For busy people, this saves drying and putting away the pan.)

2. Next morning: Bring the pot to a boil, add ¼ cup of rolled oats, and a similar amount of dried fruits, if desired.  Turn off the heat and let sit for five minutes.  (I buy my rolled oats from the same store.  Cranberries are the dried fruit we mostly add.  When fresh fruits are scarce, dried fruits can substitute.)

3. While the oats and dried fruits are cooking, prepare two bowls by adding to each:

-1 heaping tbsp of freshly ground flaxseed.  (I get the flaxseed from the same store as the grains.  Originally I ground it with a hand grinder, a good source of exercise, but now use a low-cost Cuisinart Spice and Nut Grinder for a finer grind.)

-2 heaping tbsp of crumbled pecans, or any freshly chopped nuts.

-A little honey, brown sugar, or grade B maple syrup, depending on the natural sweetness of the fruits added in step #4.  (Or a few drops of stevia.)

-Season to taste with cinnamon, cardomon, or nutmeg.  A few drops of vanilla works also.

4. Wash and prepare fruits in season, adding to each bowl:
-1/4 cup of berries.  (Blueberries mostly, but using all the berries in their season.)

-1/4 cup chopped apple or peach.  (Apples are available all year, peaches in summer.  We love the peaches, but nectarines are good too.) 
-1/2 orange, freshly juiced.  (I use an old hand juicer, also good exercise.  The orange juice provides a citrus fruit, while reducing or avoiding the need for milk, per your taste.)

5. Combine all ingredients into the bowls and enjoy. I like to add a little cream; it tastes good and can improve absorption of fat-soluble nutrients.  (I would love to find a source of unpasteurized cream from pasture-fed cows.)  If we have good whole-grain bread I also have some as toast with butter.  

We enjoy this breakfast on weekdays then have a special breakfast on Saturday for variety.  If you think of a way to make this healthier, tastier, or cheaper, please leave a comment. Or share your own ideas for a healthy start to the day.