Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
We’ve just read that the price of muesli has gone up by a fifth in the last year. Wow! No wonder it’s suddenly so expensive. Apparently it’s mainly because of the price of some of the raw ingredients going up so much, particularly almonds and hazelnuts.
Did you know you could easily save money by making my own muesli if you stopped thinking about it and just did it. It’s a good thing to do because, for a start, you can choose what goes into it (i.e. not so much sugar as the usual stuff) and make it as crunchy or gentle as you want. It’s also, potentially, much less expensive, particularly if you get some of the ingredients from your local street market rather than the supermarket.
Ingredients:
Method:
I keep meaning to toast some oats in the oven but I still haven’t done it but when I do I’ll try my muesli with those. If you know the best way to toast oats, let me know. Also, if you have your own cheap breakfast recipe, tell me in the comments below. There’s a BBC recipe book as a prize for the best one!
I have an ever-changing mix on the go; I add a handful of oats, dried fruit, the last few flakes from a commercial cereal box (wheat free), some spelt flakes, some toasted sliced almonds, some dried cranberries, puffed rice, chopped mixed nuts, you get the picture. Also, the odd teaspoon of ground cinnamon, cardamom, mace, nutmeg etc if I fancy it. Cinnamon is, after all, the feelgood spice! It contains something that sparks our synapses or the production of serotonin or something, in the brain. So it makes us feel positive.
Muesli with plain, low-fat, bio-live yoghurt is the best breakfast, in my opinion, for me. The yoghurt has that bit more protein than milk, and keeps you going for longer (an all carbohydrate breakfast, with little protein, will leave you hungry again 2-3 hours later).
I was delighted to discover Helen’s Linseed Crunch. You can sprinkle it over breakfast yoghurt, desserts etc to raise the fibre/flavour/omega content, or just add it to your own regular breakfast cereal/muesli, and shake it through. Just sweet enough and not too bird-seedy. I’ve incorporated the Cranberry and Almond one into my ever-changing muesli tub – yum. About £2.69 for 200g from Ocado, health food shops etc.
A great idea, and you can pick the exact ingredients you like.