In traditional cultures, grains are always soaked overnight if not fermented for a number of days to prepare them for consumption. Never have grains been harvested and ground without some time spent wet. Before industrialisation, grain sheafs were left in the field to gather dew before they were stored or used. The reason for this is simple yet vital.
Nature is very intelligent, as we all know. She has created in the seeds of all plants a defence against fungus, bacteria and even some insect life. “All grains contain phytic acid… in the outer layer of the bran. Un treated, phytic acid combines with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc in the intestinal tract and block their absorption. This is why a diet high in unfermented whole grains may lead to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss. The modern misguided practice of consuming large amounts of unprocessed bran often improves colon transit time at first but may lead to irritable bowel syndrome and, in the long term, many other adverse effects.”1
Soaking begins the process of germination. A seed will not grow until there is adequate water for the plant to thrive. So too will you if you soak your grains for at least 12 hours. All Grains, even rice.
Bircher muesli is a traditional Swiss recipe which is far superior to any breakfast cereal (no matter what the packaging says) found on the market.
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup fresh apple juice or orange juice
- 1/2 cup yoghurt (sugar free is best)
- handful currants or sultanas
- handful chopped dried apricots (sulphur free is best)
- a sprinkling of ground nutmeg
- a sprinkling of ground cinnamon
- 1/2 Granny Smith apple, grated (skin on) to serve
- tablespoon melted butter, seasonal berries and chopped crispy almonds to serve.
Method:
Combine the rolled oats, juice, yoghurt, currants or sultanas, chopped aprictos, nutmeg and cinnamon in a large bowl and stir together. Chill overnight.
To serve, stir in the grated apple, put into a bowl and garnish with melted butter, berries and crispy almonds.
Resources
- Fallon S. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, New Trends Publishing.1999. pg 452.
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
Feb 15th, 2005 at 4:15 am
Having just found your ’site’, I’m putting it into my ‘favorites’ as the receipes sound yummy and my husband is wheat intolerant. I have finely got him to have a go at eating healthy and this site should keep him doing just that.
Mar 12th, 2005 at 7:07 am
I had almost given up hope on finding a nutritious and tasty breakfast cereal until I found your recipe for bircher muesli. I will pass it on to my family and friends. I also thoroughly enjoyed your article on the benefits of breastfeeding, which I will pass on to my daughter, the proud mother of a 4 week old baby boy. And yes, she is breastfeeding!
Jul 12th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Is it correct that you chill the muesli overnight? I always soak my oats in warm water.
Jul 12th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I think warm water is better, especially since reading Sally Fallon’s book. I chill it after a day if there’s left overs though.
Aug 19th, 2006 at 5:01 am
Sadly, your recipe is totally wrong. Where did you get it from?
Aug 19th, 2006 at 6:53 am
I can’t remember where I got this recipe from but I make it often and it’s very delicious. We’d love to hear your version Kaktose.
Joanne
Nov 11th, 2006 at 4:04 am
Dear Joanne. Am sorry I lost track of your quesry, but your re-visit to my blog brought me back:)
The fact of the matter is, as Dr Bircher has explained with great emphasis, is that Meusli is per se, NOT a cereal dish, but a fruit dish.
He strictly recommends not more than ONE tablespoon of otas, with one whole ground (obviously organic) apple. There are many alternative versions of Meusli that he recoomends, mainly by rotation of the fruit, and the nut garnish.
I am, with a limited knowledge of Ayurveda, not in agreement with his ptting salt in Meusli, because salt and milk should NEVER be mixed.
Apart from that, the breakfast cereal industry has virtually hijacked the concept of Dr Bircher’s original thinking, so that people wold comsume more and more breakfast cereal.
Please do not hesitate to respond, if you have any views on the above, which are from Dr Bircher’s original book, the source of the short and crips summary which I have provided on my blog.
Btw, the tablespoon of butter is so totally not required!
The problem with grains, is again a little different. The conceot here, is that fresh grains have a lot of “fire” (another concept alien to allopathic medical science) in them. There have been cases of spontaneous fires in wheat silos where fresh grains have been stored.
The trick, is to eat only old grains, i.e., those that have been kept in storage for months, whether it is rice or whether it is wheat.
Fermented food, per se, is “sour” in its nature and taste. Excessive “sourness” as in the case of excessive anything, will lead to all the problems associated with it.
Remember the saying “sour grapes”?. well, the origins of that is, that if you eat to much “sour” you will be prone to jealosy.
Similarly, the results of eating excessive salt will be a temporay enhancement of the sex drive, and premature aging. That’s why sailors, when they land in ports are so horny, but look aged and wrinkly due to the exposure to salt and salty air.
Damn, I could go on, but maybe on my blog!
hope that I have provided some “nutrition” to re-think some of the concepts.
Sep 1st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Kaktose, I must assume that you are not a man if you believe it is due to excessive salt that causes sailors to be so horny after months away at sea in a small boat! I will try this recipe from Joanne but do think the butter sounds questinable. I live in Thailand and always add tropical fruit to muesli. Try this chilled with mango and papaya and it completely lifts the morning taste buds to sublimity.
Sep 2nd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
If you’re in the tropics, Alex, use coconut cream or coconut oil. I recommend eating some saturated fat with the muesli because it gives you instant energy while your body takes it’s time assimilating the grains, evening out your blood sugar. If you’re worried about saturated fat, please read this article, you’ll find it’s not the demon you’ve been lead to believe. Paw Paw sounds just divine. I’m considering doing the milk cure with kefirred milk and paw paw for a few days this Spring. I’ve written about the milk cure at the end of this month’s Liver Nourishing article and there was an article all about it a few months ago, here. I’ll come out of the ‘fast’ by adding other things to my hourly glass of kefir like coconut cream, egg, butter, other fruit, honey, bit by bit. It’s an experiment. I’ll keep you all updated on my blog.
Oct 18th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Joanne, coconut oil or cream has more saturated fat in it than even pure butter, it is also a solid fat. While saturated fat is not bad for you in limited amounts, depending on your cholesterol levels, liquid unsaturated oils and fats are positively good for you, so the choice to me should be an easy one. A sprinkle of walnut oil or flax seed or Avocado oil is better for you and will actively help reduce the bad cholesterol levels in your body no matter what level they are at. Saturated fat will simply add to them in all cases.
For a better understanding have a good and interesting read on the Harvard School of Public Health site. In this day and age of conflicting and often biased and self serving opinion it is a very refreshing site. Their findings are also all backed up with up to date research, the site is also very nicely presented and accessible.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats.html
Oct 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Paul, all non-industrialised people sought out animals with high stores of animal fat. Hunting or butchering only when they were at their fattest. Why would they do this if saturated fat was only good in limited amounts?
Ancel Key’s work has been discredited over and over again, leaving science with little proof to the saturated fat-heart disease theory.
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=heart.disease&conitem=a03ddd2eaab85110VgnVCM10000013281eac____&page=1
Take, for example, a 2004 Harvard University study of older women with heart disease. Researchers found that the more saturated fat these women consumed, the less likely it was their condition would worsen. Lead study author Dariush Mozaffarian, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Harvard’s school of public health, recalls that before the paper was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he encountered formidable politics from other journals.
“In the nutrition field, it’s very difficult to get something published that goes against established dogma,” says Mozaffarian. “The dogma says that saturated fat is harmful, but that is not based, to me, on unequivocal evidence.” Mozaffarian says he believes it’s critical that scientists remain open minded. “Our finding was surprising to us. And when there’s a discovery that goes against what’s established, it shouldn’t be suppressed but rather disseminated and explored as much as possible.”
For example, in a new 12-week study, University of Connecticut scientists placed overweight men and women on either a low-carb or low-fat diet. Those who followed the low-carb diet consumed 36 grams of saturated fat per day (22 percent of total calories), which represented more than three times the amount in the low-fat diet. Yet despite this considerably greater intake of saturated fat, the low-carb dieters reduced both their number of small, dense LDL cholesterol and their HDL/LDL ratio to a greater degree than those who ate a low-fat diet. In addition, triglycerides decreased by 51 percent in the low-carb group compared with 19 percent in the low-fat group.
Dr. Krauss found that when people replace the carbohydrates in their diet with fat “saturated or unsaturated” the number of small, dense LDL particles decreases. This leads to the highly counterintuitive notion that replacing your breakfast cereal with eggs and bacon could actually reduce your risk of heart disease.
Also:
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/oiling.html
Reveals the corporate interest in keeping saturated fat in the bad books.
The “cholesterol makes heart disease” theory is just as shonky as the “saturated fat makes cholesterol theory”.
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/
For independent science on cholesterol and health.
Dec 4th, 2007 at 9:33 am
To Alex and Paul above who questioned Joanne’s recipes, Joanne is obviously an active proponent of non-traditional diets so there is no point arguing with her from a traditional nutrition point of view.
People from non-industrialised societies generally died much younger than we do today, so the many health problems we currently experience in later life were not so pronounced. If you do a lot of physical activity, consuming a lot of animal fat is an easy and valid way to provide energy, however I’m guessing most readers of this website don’t walk more than 7000 steps a day (popular thinking recommends walking at least 10,000 steps).
As for eating raw liver (see Joanne’s liver nourishing article), I don’t know why you would bother (why freeze it and swallow in pill sizes to minimise the yucky raw flavour?) when cooked liver tastes so good. The medieval recipes cited do not use raw liver. I would class heating without boiling as a form of slow cooking. And I definitely would not want to start with the recommended large portion of liver and slowly cut back until the headaches and joint pains go away.
Joanne, apologies if I’ve offended, it was not intended, just want to provide a bit of balance to the comments. I enjoyed reading some of your articles even though I don’t agree with all of your ideas. Everyone is entitled to have their own views on health and nutrition, and one can only hope readers are intelligent enough to make their own decisions about diets and lifestyles.
Dec 4th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Having discussion about food is why most of us are here. Most of us would have been attracted to the site for health reasons both in the pursuit of well being or to cure an ill.
The bottom line for all us, even if you don’t agree with Bircher Muesli or the way liver is consumed is that something is terribly wrong with out diets today. As the doctorwithin.com says “We have more doctors and more drugs than any civilization in history” yet cancer and heart related illness have increased year upon year. Cholesterol misinformation is alive and well.
Personally, I followed all that Men’s Health and other media preached for years.. blindly following, thinking they should know right? Wrong! Sites like Joanne’s have opened my eyes to what the untold story is. Greed, money and self interest. Over the past 6 months I have read many views from all sorts of people from all kinds of backgrounds. There are varying views, but there is a pattern… protein, saturated fats and low carbs are the common themes. Of course people eat for different reasons, but essentially..
I have mentioned this person before, but I thoroughly reccommend reading Anthony Colpo. He has done some terrific research on the myths of cholesterol and he is practising what he preaches with health and diet. He has also learnt with facts the real story and is prepared to back up what he preaches. That’s good enough for me.
Dec 4th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Dora, I don’t think Joanne would be offended by your statements. I would like to pull you up on your first sentence though, as I think you will find that it is actually the other way around, as in…
“Joanne is obviously an active proponent of Traditional Diets”. Well last time I ate with her anyway, I have been out all day so she may have changed while I was gone, but I doubt it ;-)
And Raw Liver rocks! Each to their own. It’s one of my personal favorites.
Glen, I couldn’t agree more. Something is not right. I just spent the day at the Gold Coast and had a tough time eating anywhere because all I could find was junk food shops. I finally made it to my ‘oasis’ on the coast - Luka’s Fish & Chips for some traditional Fish & Chips cooked in Beef Tallow. Oh yeah!