Health Foods Cardiff
A Low Fat Granola Recipe for a Healthy Heart
A Healthy Low Fat Granola Recipe
Why not try this healthy low fat granola recipe?
Granola is a very welcome addition to muesli on cold winter mornings.
Some people love to eat it as a cereal by itself. It's certainly very nice that way but, for me, it's just too high in sugars for everyday consumption.
However, if you are , walking in the wilds or working hard and using up loads of energy, there is nothing wrong with replenishing your reserves with a (quite) low-fat granola bar or a handful or two of homemade granola.
The sugars give you an instant lift and the complex carbohydrates in the grains gives you a more sustained energy. The seeds and nuts provide proteins to sustain you for even longer.
Recent research has shown that protein contributes to that "full" feeling you expect from eating a square meal. (Interesting that research often just corroborates what nutritionists have known for years!)
A healthy low fat granola recipe:
Granola - a heart healthy recipe! Granola made this way is also a heart-healthy snack food because of the relatively low fat content and the vitamins and minerals supplied by the grains, seeds, nuts and fruits.
Obviously you need to be careful not to have too much of a good thing. I find it's really easy to pig out on this - not such a good idea if you are being quite sedentary!
Oats and other grains are rich in magnesium and other minerals and vitamins which help keep cholesterol low.
So, granola can be a quite healthy as part of a diet rich in natural grains and vegetables - and as a welcome treat for when you are working or playing extra hard.
A healthy low fat granola recipe:
Why make your own homemade granola?
The advantage of making your own healthy homemade granola is that you can avoid some of the hydrogenated fats and corn syrup found in many of the commercial brands.
For best nutrition, choose a good oil which is high in polyunsaturated fats or mono-unsaturated fat rather than saturated fats. Safflower oil is a good choice but relatively expensive. Peanut oil and sunflower oil are also very good. Some of the cold-pressed oils may be a little too tasty for the job. Sunflower is good because the taste is mild.
You can use margarine but it is usually made with trans-fats which raise cholesterol. A good natural oil (preferably organic) is far better.
You can also choose a high proportion of as ingredients. Using whole-grain and organic ingredients in your granola snack recipe will bring you even greater health benefits as you can be certain that you are consuming far fewer toxic chemical residues.
Organic farming is also far better for the environment and for wildlife. Please see for more on this.
You can, of course buy 
A healthy low fat granola recip...
Healthy Cereal Choices
What is a healthy cereal? Cereals and grains play a large part in most people's diets. Cereals can be both nutritious and delicious. But which ones are best for health? And which ones are grown in ways that do not harm the environment?
What's here? This page is about the cereals we eat and how organic whole grains are the best cereal choice for everyday eating. This is the first of several pages on healthy cereals and cereal nutrition facts. After a brief look at the role of cereals in our diets, this page considers wheat as a nutritional cereal. There is a brief history of wheat and a look at some of the health implications of modern cereal production methods. There are enormous environmental concerns about our farming and cereal production methods. Modern farming is quite unsustainable. Ads and fads
Some cereal manufacturers have deep pockets and seem to spend the equivalent of a small country's wealth on their advertising campaigns. However, some cereals are not especially healthy cereals because they have been processed and denatured for the junk food market. They are nutritionally poor and some may even contain traces of pesticides and other contaminants. As part of a green lifestyle you may want to eat mainly organic cereals and grains because they are better for your health and definitely better for the environment. You may also want to include a high percentage of whole grain foods because they are generally nutritionally superior, especially to bleached and highly processed supermarket products. "There is evidence that regular consumption of cereals, specifically wholegrains, may have a role in the prevention of chronic diseasesÂ…. People who consume diets rich in wholegrain cereals seem to have a lower incidence of many chronic diseases,eg coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes."
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| - The British Nutrition Foundation |
We are bombarded with ads for breakfast cereals: "High fibre", "low fat", "added vitamins", "suitable for a calorie-controlled diet for weight loss", - the claims made for these creations are endless. 
