Muesli with nuts and seasonal fruit
There's a formula I like to use for muslei
THE SOAK
Let's talk about "the soak", because this is the important part. I've talked before about the anti-nutrients in foods, especially seed foods. Any food that is a seed is not meant to nourish you. It's meant to hold tightly to its nutrients, be eaten by you and pass largely intact through your body and get pooped out into some remote location to grow into a new plant. So while seed foods might CONTAIN lots of protein and minerals.... it doesn't mean you'll be able to absorb them
That's where the term "bioavailable" comes in. If nutrients are not bioavailable, they aren't going to get absorbed. So in the oats... especially since you won't be cooking them... it's important so soak them with a little acid to help neutralize some of the phytates and oxalates which would otherwise prevent calcium and magnesium from being absorbed. So we soak our oats, dulse and chia seeds (and the flax, if you like) with some water, some acid (in the form of orange juice, crushed pineapple or whey) and a pinch of salt.
For the oats, you can use either rolled oats or quick oats. I'm partial to organic, because you can get a lot of glyphosphate (Roundup) residue on oats. We'll also buy gluten-free when we can. I make this economical by buying my oats in 25# sacks from Azure Standard every couple of months.
THE FRUIT
The big variable for us is the fruit. It changes according to the season.
May: Frozen berries left-over from last year
June: Strawberries and nectarines
Late June: Raspberries
July: Raspberries, blueberries and peaches
August: Peaches and blackberries
September: blackberries and grated appple
For my nutritionist brain, this means a wide variety of polyphenols. All those colors mean great food for your microbiome and lots of antioxidants. Great for reducing inflammation.
NUTRIFY
Naturally, I add a few things to bump up the nutrition in our muslei. Those things are chia seeds, dulse flakes and ground flax seeds. As a result, this breakfast is very high in fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. The dulse adds iodine, iron and other micronutrients.
THE NUTS
About once per week, we roast a pan of nuts and seeds in the oven. 10 minutes at 350oF is enough and we fill a quart jar with them. I like some combination of sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and either almonds or hazelnuts. You can choose what you like best.
THE SWEET
This is a sweet breakfast, for sure. I get that from the pineapple/orange juice that I soak the oats with, sliced banana and the dried fruit. We add both raisins AND dried papaya. For some reason, dried papaya is an essential ingredient that my family cannot live without in muslei, so you could try it. But there's no reason that other dried fruits wouldn't work equally as well. You can also add honey or maple syrup.
YOGURT
The final ingredient is full-fat, plain yogurt. Make it at home or buy it. If you want your muslei extra sweet, adding vanilla yogurt is really over-the-top. Here are instructions on how to easily make your own yogurt at home.
My bowl this morning:
