Ingredients for homemade muesli

I remember eating oats since I was a child. A sort of gruel, oatmeal, sometimes a more distinguished porridge, many kinds of mueslis and other mixes containing this cereal.  I always have at home non-added sugar muesli, but I prefer to make my own homemade muesli, to know well what it contains.

After a few years of experience, I have developed a quick muesli, that is really an enriched “porridge”.

I like the oats and the bran soaked in hot water. So I mix it and place in the microwave for two minutes.

Step 2 of the homemade muesli. I added the water to the oats and heated in the microwave for two minutes

You must be careful not to leave the bowl in the microwave too long. It may boil and mess the kitchen up. And you want less work, no more.

Step 3 of the homemade muesli. Add the nuts and the pumpkin seeds

Step 4 of the homemade muesli. Add the yogurt

Afterwords,  I add walnut, pumpkin seeds, wood fruit, yogurt 0% fat, and 0% skimmed milk.

Step 5 for homemade muesli. Add the skimmed milk.

And finish with the skimmed milk!

The amount of ingredients I use varies according to the day and to my activities. I don’t need to control my weight, but I have used a small kitchen scale to know the total calories of the dish.

Today we are going to talk about Mediterranean Breakfast. Long time ago it used to be a bowl of “coffee” (normally roast barley, as coffee was very rare and expensive), goat milk, non degermed flour traditional bread, olive oil and sometimes a salty sardine or a salty herring and maybe a tomato. This was the normal breakfast of a peasant who had to go to work from sunrise to sunset. More accommodated people used to send the maid to buy “churros” or had whiter bread and better olive oil. Logically, they had real coffee and the same goat milk. Nevertheless, the milk was not as good as the peasant one, as normally the shepherd, who milked the goats in customers’ own homes, used to bring the bucket with some water in it. He has previously asked permission in the preceding house to “wash” the recipient in the sink. Only expert housekeepers or housewives knew the trick.

Churros

The traditional bread was made with non degermed flour, from which they used to take away part of the bran, that has been proved later to be a dietary cause of osteoporosis. This is why bread made with “degermed whole wheat flour”, that is really degermed and refined flour with added bran (fake whole bread), should be rejected. Generally, almost 99% of the “whole bread” is faked. Nowadays, the germ normally is removed as in a short period of time it makes the flour turns rancid.

This picture of the bread was taken from the Cecipereza’s and her brother Salva’s blog, one of the persons who know more about bread in the World, apart from being an excellent humorist. The bread is really artisan, as it was made without yeast. It is not an unleavened bread, as you can see, as she uses a little of the dough of the previous days, as they used to do in ancient times. It is a homemade bread.

The name of her blog has nothing to do with a trade mark or brand. It comes from a personal anecdote who led to a pun impossible to translate into English (it has to be pronounced in Andalusian). You should try to read it from the same Cecipereza’s about page.

Artisan bread

Anyway, let’s come back to the XXI Century. Even today, breakfast continues being a not very important meal. Many people just have a coffee or a tea and go to work. Nevertheless, many of them have another breakfast two or three hours later.

I would advise you not to depend on any food establishment (you never know what they are giving to you). So, I would recommend that you’d have a big breakfast at home. I would choose tea, skimmed milk and no sugar (or any sweetener) in it. This is something that will take time to you. However, after you have accustomed your taste buds to unsweetened drinks, you’ll reject any overly sweet or even sweet drink. And you will get your reward in the form of a better health, as in the case of avoiding overly salty food. Artificial sweeteners are potentially dangerous. There is a long report of Dr. David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, in the Journal of the American Medical Association about it. “Artificially Sweetened Beverages, Cause for Concern”.

Wheat kernel

I would add to the breakfast a big amount of fruits (I’ll tell you later which are better), traditional bread, olive oil, dairy products and some fish, ham or even eggs. You can have, two or three times a week, an omelet with a yolk and two or three egg whites. Give the other yolks to your dog. You can also boil a dozen of eggs, keep them in the fridge and eat sometimes one or two whites.

With such a breakfast, you will be satisfied until lunch time. If the lunch is late, you can have one or two apples in the middle of the morning. Apples are clean, healthy and can be easily eaten without spoiling your shirt. Eating an apple half an hour before lunch has additional advantages: It prepares your stomach and will calm your hunger. (It’s a trick). Another one is taking strawberries before a cocktail party. You will not attack the canapés and your breath will be lovely.

And, at the lunch time, do what I said in “Weight Loss Tip 4: Start with a big salad” or boiled vegetables. (In the future “BS or BV”).

For dinner, what you eat will depend on the exercise you do, on the calories you burn. However, if you are very hungry go again for the BS or BV and something else. If you want dessert, take fruit.

Don’t forget, every time you are hungry in the middle of the main meals, go for a piece or two of fresh fruit.

]]> https://www.mediterraneandiet.com/2011/05/18/weight-loss-tip-5-mediterranean-breakfast/feed/ 0 https://www.mediterraneandiet.com/2008/12/30/daily-diet/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:09:23 +0000 http://www.mediterraneandiet.com/?p=602 … Continue reading →]]> Updated on March 16, 2017


March 16, 2017
If you plan an adequate daily diet, you probably won’t need to worry about your weight
Posted by Alberto Roycor Updated on March 16, 2017

Timeline of a Mediterranean daily diet

The ancient Mediterranean normal day in the south of Spain started with a 6.00 o’clock breakfast containing essentially peasant bread and olive oil (with a little bit of salt or even sugar). To drink, black coffee or coffee whitened with goat milk.  About 10.30, people use to have a snack consisting of fruit (generally grapes), bread and cheese. Have you ever tried the delicious sensation of eating grapes and cheese at the same time? Don’t miss it!

For lunch, from 2 to 3 o’clock, peasants use to stay at the farm, as the way home was long. There they made an Andalusian gazpacho with tomato, garlic, bread, water and any vegetable they could arrange as cucumber, onion, green pepper, etc.  They normally take from home a couple of salty herring, that they ate with the gazpacho. The herrings help to restore the salt lost sweating during all the morning. Physical activity was high.

At winter, they use to have a “potaje” generally made of chickpeas or lentils, and chorizo (Spanish sausage with red pepper), morcilla (blood sausage), bacon and meat . Many days, the potage was vegetarian as there was not much money for the meat products. In special days, they used to kill a home bred chicken or a rabbit. (It was a luxury). It was very common having fish in many ways, specially a lot of different types of fish soups. Three o four mackerels, tomato, onion, green pepper, garlic , olive oil and potato was the base of a simple soup called “en blanco”.

Another food to take away was dried figs. It is a very energetic product.

Afternoon daily diet

At six o’clock children use to eat a “joyo” (hoyo=hole or pit), a piece of coarse bread with a crater in it full of olive oil, sugar or salt. In Spanish, the letter “h” does not sound but in the south of Spain, it is aspired, like in “home”.

For dinner, fried potatoes with fried green peppers, or boiled vegetables. It the hens had yielded any eggs, they had a fried egg per person (If there was only one, it was for the father, as he had to work hard the following day.

Today the habits has changed. People who follow the Mediterranean Diet, still have bread and olive oil for breakfast, but with fruits and natural fruit juices. Many people eat abroad but you can find Mediterranean Diet restaurant where they try to imitate the home Mediterranean Food. You can find many other types of restaurants, of course, but this is your choice. This is the present Mediterranean daily diet,

In three to five stars hotel you normally get a Mediterranean Buffet for breakfast.

People who want to lose weight, follow the Mediterranean diet weight loss plan

We do not recommend following a low calorie diet without medical advice. For example,  the 1500 cal diet. Every person is different!

See video about Seafood Buffet: