Mr Smaggle and I have been on a big journey with our eating habits in the past year. We’re both business owners so optimal health is incredibly important to us. We can’t afford have sick days if we’re not firing on all cylinders due to not taking care of ourselves. We’re constantly changing our diets, trying to find the best combo of food for consistent energy levels and overall good health. He’s also a coeliac so this makes us not at all fun to cook dinner for.
I initially tried eating in the low carb high-fat style for weight loss (which didn’t work – it worked for maintenance but not loss) but I noticed my energy levels were much better, my weight didn’t fluctuate daily like it used to and my sleep had improved. Mr Smaggle noticed the differences in my productivity and gave it a try and we’ve both been doing it for about a year now.
The rules of LCHF are insanely simple. You basically eat vegetables, meat and dairy (although I eat super low dairy because it helps with period pain. For real. How unfair is that?) with fats and that’s it. We don’t get hungry, we don’t get cravings. If you eat enough fat in your diet, everything just kind of works. This means we don’t eat sugar, starchy vegetables, rice, bread, pasta or grains. It sounds really strict (which it is) but we’ve been doing it since February 2017 and I haven’t found it that much of a challenge. We have omelettes for breakfast, oily fish and avocado salads for lunch and some kind of protein with baked broccoli and cauliflower for dinner. Simple. I’ll have a few glasses of wine a week and if I want something sweet I’ll have some 92% dark chocolate or berries and cream.
Meals are fine. We can go to burger joints and order a bunless burger. Most places have great salads these days too. The one thing Mr Smaggle really struggled to give up though was cereal with his yogurt. I make our own full-fat yogurt in our EasiYo and have been doing for that years but finding a cereal that’s not full of sugar, grains or dried fruit is almost impossible. On LCHF you can have nuts, seeds, coconut and butter and to me that sounded like a recipe for some freaking awesome cereal.
What you need for the LCHF Ketogenic Version
1 cup natural almonds, lightly pulsed in a food processor
1 cup walnuts, lightly pulsed in a food processor
1 cup macadamias, lightly pulsed in a food processor
1 cup pecans, lightly pulsed in a food processor
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 pepitas
1/2 black chia seeds
2 tablespoons of cinnamon
1/4 cup of melted butter
What You Need For The Who Cares I Just Like Cereal Version
1 cup natural almonds, lightly pulsed in a food processor
3 cups oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 pepitas
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons of cinnamon
1/4 cup of canola or vegetable oil
What you do
- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Mix nuts and seeds together in a mixing bowl until very well combined. Add cinnamon and mix until nuts are coated. Add melted butter and mix well.
- Place on a large baking paper covered tray and put in the oven for 10 mins.
- Removed from the oven and turn the cereal over to brown on the other side.
- Keep cooking the cereal at 10-minute intervals, turning it over in between sessions until it’s brown and crispy.
- Optional: Eat some while it’s still warm with some greek yogurt because it’s freaking delicious.
- Wait until it cools and store in an airtight container.
The cooking time of this cereal varies greatly. In my old oven I needed to cook it for about 50 mins and in my new oven, it was done in 30 minutes. Just make sure you watch the cereal very carefully and check it every ten minutes to avoid it burning.
Hot tip: You don’t need to be too weird about the quantities in this. I tend to follow a big/small rule. If the ingredient is big, like nuts, pop in a full cup. If it’s small, like seeds, go for half a cup. Also if I was making this for me, I’d ditch the walnuts because I don’t really like them. They have a weird aftertaste that I can totally live without so if you’re not a fan of one of the ingredients, you can easily swap it out. If you don’t follow a particular diet you can swap out three cups of nuts and replace them with three cups of oats to make it more cost-effective and to add some good slow burning carbs to the cereal if you like – I’ve added a Who Cares I Just Like Cereal version. This will also lower the fat in the recipe if you’re worried about eating too many high-fat nuts. You can also use coconut oil or Nuttelex if you want to make a vegan version. You could also add dried cranberries to give it a bit of sweetness.
Another hot tip: This is super healthy but it’s also very calorie dense and I’d only recommend eating it if you’re following a high fat, low carb diet. Mr Smaggle eats this by the bucket load but his metabolism is on speed so I’d tread carefully with this cereal if weight loss is your aim. I don’t eat this very often because eating nuts make me gain weight like crazy but when I do, I eat it as a sprinkle on top of a bowl of greek yogurt. 1 tablespoon of this on some delicious yogurt is a lovely after dinner treat if I’m feeling a bit peckish.
I’ve often thought this would make a wonderful and useful Christmas gift. I travel every year for Christmas in a tiny car so I can’t pack much stuff but if I could I’d make a big batch of this and pop it into little glass jars with cute labels. Homemade cereal is so tasty, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love it. It’s also a cute idea for office holiday gifts.
Have you ever made your own cereal before? Also, does anyone else hate walnuts?
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