Luxury muesli & Birchner muesli

I like to soak my muesli the night before because it makes grains, nuts and seeds super digestible and more filling.  Unsoaked grains contain phytates which impede your mineral absorption. Making your own muesli is great because you can use the nuts and seeds you prefer.  Commercial muesli is often high in dried fruit, which just gives you too much carbohydrate (sugars) at one sitting.  It can also load up on cheaper ingredients like wheat flakes, instead of better-for-you oats.  I love to add a heaped teaspoon of ground ginger and 2 of Ceylon cinnamon when making the muesli because I love the antioxidant  punch of spices which keep you healthier and younger looking for longer.

When I have early clinic I often make Birchner muesli. I put half a mug of muesli in a wide glass screw top jar, grate an organic apple in, add lots of kefir/yoghurt and mix it up, sometimes with a few drops of stevia if I am feeling like something sweeter or am using sour berries.   Instant brekkie the following morning.  Yum…

Luxury Muesli
3 cups gluten-free (or normal, if you tolerate gluten-contamination) jumbo oatflakes or porridge oatflakes
½ cup walnuts, broken into quarters, halves or roughly chopped
½ almonds, coarsely chopped
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup hazelnuts or Brazil nuts, coarsely chopped
½ cup organic whole chia seeds or linseeds (also known as flaxseeds)
½ cup chopped unsulphured apricots
½ cup dessicated coconut or large coconut flakes

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight jar.
Serve ½ mug of this muesli with natural yoghurt, milk of your choice and a cupful of chopped fruit – apple, pear or berries.

If you need more sweetness, use a few stevia drops from health stores.  Its a plant extract that’s much sweeter than sugar but without calories and negative health effects.

Birchner Muesli
Soak ½ a mug of this muesli in a bit more than double its volume of home made kefir or yoghurt overnight (for dairy free use almond or coconut based yoghurt – if it’s very thick you might need to add some non-dairy milk).
Serve with a grated organic apple/pear or 1 cup mixed fresh or frozen berries

As a yoghurt/kefir substitute you could use half water half cloudy apple juice to soak.  This isn’t as good because it contains no protein and raises the (natural) sugars in the meal.  But if you cant bear milk, yoghurt or kefir of any type with muesli (like my husband) what the hell…

A note about dairy sensitivities:
If you are mildly dairy-sensitive (you get symptoms but don’t have any major autoimmune health condition) you might like to try home made kefir.  Kefir is a fermented milk product where the bacterial cultures have digested both the lactose (milk sugar) and casein (milk protein).  I find that with any other dairy product, I immediately get a stuffed nose and throat, but not with home made kefir.  You might be the same.  Yay!! fully fermented home made kefir has over 20 varieties of beneficial bacteria to help your health.  Even when good bacteria are killed by your strong stomach acid they still have a huge metabolic effect on you.  How amazing is that…