The other day I wandered up and down the cereal aisle at the local supermarket to search out a breakfast cereal that did not have either sugar or oil added to it. The healthiest cereal I could find still had honey added. I am certainly not impressed with the multitude of words now being used for what is essentially sugar - raw sugar, unrefined sugar, natural cane sugar, evaporated cane juice. That last one really annoyed me!

Of course you could be healthy and eat oats, porridge, muesli for breakfast. But I tire of these quite quickly. I like cereal! Why is it so hard to find a healthy cereal?!
So you know what this means... time to make my own breakfast cereal.

This is a 50g serve.

So I have combined -
  • 2 cups of puffed brown rice
  • 1 cup of rice bran (made with rice and prune juice)
  • 1 cup of puffed quinoa
  • 1 cup of puffed amaranth
  • 100g of dried fruit (currants, cranberries)

Other things you could consider adding to your cereal -

  • seeds (pepitas,  sunflower seeds, linseed)
  • nuts (macadamia, almond flakes)
  • other cereals (quinoa flakes, oats, barley, cornflakes)
  • other dried fruit (apple, raisins, sultanas, apricot)
  • coconut

The best thing about making your own cereal is that you control the ingredients. You can put in your favourite ingredients, and leave out all the things you dislike! I don't like seeds, nuts or coconut in my cereal... as you can see.

I would eat this cereal with milk or soymilk, a spoonful of plain yoghurt, and a sliced up banana. Mmmmmm... yum!

Now I'm sure you're all wondering how many calories a serve of this will be! I'll break it down -

  • 2 cups of puffed brown rice = 66g at 1610kj per 100g = 1062.6kj
  • 1 cup of rice bran (made with rice and prune juice) = 170g at 1690kj per 100g= 2873kj
  • 1 cup of puffed quinoa = 37g at 1475kj per 100g =545.75kj
  • 1 cup of puffed amaranth =37g at 1553kj per 100g =574.61kj
  • 100g of dried fruit (currants, cranberries) = 100g at 1221kj per 100g =1221kj

That's a total of 410g (8 serves) with a total of 6276.96kj which is 1530kj per 100g. And only 765kj per (50g) serve.

Most cereals have approximately the same number of kj per 50g -

special K = 775kj per 50g

Carman's fruit and nut muesli = 946kj per 50g

Weetbix multigrain = 800kj per 50g

Kelloggs Just Right =745kj per 50g

But the important thing about this home-made cereal is that it is nutrient dense and full of whole-grains. The only sugar is provided by the grains and the dried fruit. We have total control over the amount of sugar.