Spiced Cherry Granola

Lately, I’ve been thinking about one of the main things that got me into cooking, the goal to eat healthier. I wanted to ensure that I was eating the highest quality food possible. When you cook for yourself you can control what goes into your food. You can select fresh organic quality produce and avoid unhealthy additives like sugar and preservatives. As a side note, if you garden, farm, or hunt you have even more control over the quality of the food, but lets just start with cooking for now.

One of the first things I did when I became more health conscious, is I started reading labels. I was shocked at how many things had sugar and preservatives as an additive. When I say preservatives, I mean things that help extend the shelf life of foods, thus preserving them. Now a days these are often those chemicals with the weird names you can’t pronounce, like 4-Hydroxybenzoesäurepropylester (aka Propyl Paraben), a preserved that has been linked to decreased sperm counts and testosterone levels, alteration of gene expression in breast cancer cells and an accelerated growth of breast cancer cells, and impaired fertility in women.

It is crazy all the serious health problems that have been linked to these preservatives that are added to almost all prepackaged foods. James Colquhoun has a great article that discusses additives and preservatives and the health problems associated with them. (1)

Anyways, as I discovered this, I became more and more motivated to make food from scratch. For example, I ditched store bought granola full of sugar, low quality oils, and preservatives; and started making my own. In my granola I used organic high quality ingredients and only a small amount of a high quality sweetener like real maple syrup.

Today I am sharing one of my favorite homemade granola recipes with you so that you too can make a healthy granola! This a cherry spiced granola. It has dried cherries, walnuts, pecans, oats, buckwheat groats, spices, and more. The buckwheat groats are really unique and give the granola a nice crunch.

I have been enjoying homemade granola for several years now. It might sound intimidating at first, but it’s actually not that hard and only takes about 8 minutes to prep and 30 minutes to cook. And then you have 30 plus servings of fresh healthy granola on hand for the next few weeks.

My favorite way to enjoy this granola is on my Protein Yogurt Bowl with Tropical Fruit and Granola or on my Berry Cacao Protein Smoothie Bowl. But you can eat it however you like. Anyways, I hope this recipe brings happiness and health to you and your loved ones!

With love from my kitchen to yours,

Kayley

Spiced Cherry Granola

AuthorKayley O'Brien

Nutrition:

(2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Notes:

• Nutrition is based on the products I use. I provide a nutrition table so that you can quickly check to see if your food products match or so that you can easily calculate the nutrition for any changes you want to make to the recipe. I think this helps if you have very specific diet goals and/or fitness and/or health goals. I also wanted you to be able to see exactly where I get the numbers for my nutrition facts so that you can see that they are reliable and learn more about macro breakdowns of food.
• Also measurements are for whole nuts before I chop them.

Works Cited

1. Colquhoun, James. “22 Additives And Preservatives To Avoid.” Food Matters. 1 November 2016. https://www.foodmatters.com/article/22-additives-and-preservatives-to-avoid

2. Nutritionix. Gladson. https://www.nutritionix.com/ Accessed 21 January 2019.

3. “Nutrition Label of Maple Syrup.” Trader Joes, Monrovia, CA, 2019.

4. “Nutrition Label of Oats.” Bob’s Red Mill, Milwaukie, Or, 2019.

5. “Nutrition Label of Pecans.” Trader Joes, Monrovia, CA, 2019.

6. “Nutrition Label of Sunflower Oil.” Spectrum, Lake Success, NY, 2019.