Is there a healthy granola brand? Healthy granola should be grain-free, gluten-free granola, with nutrient-dense superfoods, adaptogens that taste delicious. If you want to eat healthy granola, stop buying conventional granola at the supermarket. Conventional granola is loaded with gluten, grains, refined sugars, toxic fillers, rancid oils, GMO and artificial ingredients. Is granola healthy? This question is being asked by millions of granola lovers on a daily basis, as they walk the aisles of grocery stores everywhere.
In examining various granola brands available nationwide, we are happy to report that there is one Superfood granola that truly delivers on its promise of being healthy, health-promoting and absolutely delicious. Read further to learn which specific brand of granola actually delivers on its promise of being healthy, delicious and micro-nutrient dense.
To better understand why granola is being re-examined by health institutions, nutritionists, journalists, and consumers alike, let’s evaluate some of the positive benefits and negative downsides of conventional granola that is being exposed today.
The Positive Benefits of Granola
Scan any bag of granola online or at your grocery store, and you will see that they all promote how much whole grains and servings of fiber they contain. These ingredients make them seem like must-have additions to your pantry. Are there real benefits to eating whole grain-based granola? Maybe a small number, but there are also considerable downsides.
Consider the ingredients that go into your average granola recipe: Whole-grain oats with fiber that satiate hunger; roasted/toasted seeds and nuts are touted for being rich sources of essential fatty acids, a variety of dried fruits offer natural sweetness. Well, if juxtaposed next to a box of Frosted Flakes, the conventional granola will always appear to be the obvious healthier option.
Although oats have long been lauded by the media as a health food for many decades, the gut disease crisis that is manifesting as dysbiosis, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, IBD, etc., has called its health moniker into question. The media recently reported that oats(both conventionally grown and organic oats) have all tested positive for herbicide chemicals that are sprayed on crops.
Furthermore, many well-known brands of granola that contain oats were found to have traces of this herbicide residue. The sad thing is that oat is usually the first ingredient, which means it makes up the bulk of the granola. Why? The dirty secret in the granola industry is that oats are extremely cheap and; therefore makes for an inexpensive bulk filler ingredient that lowers the overall cost. Oats can be as much as 65% of the content of your conventional granola bowl or granola bar. Although the consequences of regularly consuming foods laced with herbicides may still be debated, new research shows that toxic herbicide consumption may contribute to gut diseases and other degenerative diseases that produce inflammation in the body. Since these diseases may take some time to manifest, the link was not so clear in the past.
Making Granola part of a healthy diet also means choosing the right kind of granola. Consumers should consider switching to oat-free granola to avoid grains and toxic herbicide residue.
The Negative Downside of Conventional Granola
1. Sugar Bomb. Store-bought granola is typically filled with sugar in one form or another and lots of it. If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you know that sugar causes inflammation in the body which leads to various forms of diseases, including cancer. To confuse the consumer, sweeteners are often renamed to make them sound healthier than they truly are. Companies know that consumers have been trained for years to be scared of words like high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and white sugar that may appear on product labels, so they often use other high fructose-containing alternatives like:
Agave Syrup
Brown rice syrup
Organic brown sugar
Oat syrup solids
2. High Calorie Counts. Conventional granola typically contains what amounts to be several hundred calories per serving size. Although Healthier granola contains less than 110 calories per ¼-cup serving, expect to see at least 200 calories or more per ¼-cup in conventional granola.
3. Contain Oils That Easily Go Rancid When Cooked/Heated. Conventional granola is often loaded with palm oil, soy oil, and hydrogenated oils that extremely heat sensitive and easily oxidize to become toxic carcinogenic promoters of disease. Consuming these kinds of oils may damage your heart, arteries and promote inflammation throughout the body. Artisan granola brands like Yogi Granola use extra virgin coconut oil or ghee, which are recognized as healthier fats that have been shown to confer positive health benefits in countless peer-reviewed studies.
4. Contain Carcinogenic Toxic fillers. A quick overview of so-called healthy granola brands may also surprise consumers. Some of them have been found to contain ingredients such as inulin (soluble fiber which causes digestive issues for many people), soy protein isolate, canola oil, soybean oil, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, xanthan gum, and carrageenan.
So, what type of healthy granola should you be buying?
Look for a granola brand that is low in sugar, contains raw healthy fats, superfoods, adaptogens, sprouted nuts, and non-GMO, organic, wildcrafted or bio-dynamic ingredients. It also helps if this granola is grain-free(contains no oats), gluten-free and handcrafted by artisans in small batches to maintain a high level of quality control. On top of all that, this granola should be No-bake granola, which means it is not cooked in an oven and therefore not heated above temperatures of 115 degrees Fahrenheit, so that it technically remains a raw food that offers a wide spectrum of live activated enzymes. Yogi Granola, a superfood granola, is the only granola brand on the market which adequately fits the above description in its entirety.
Yogi Granola uses organic nuts and seeds as a base for its Granola. These nuts and seeds are soaked and sprouted to remove several anti-nutrients — like Phytic acid, Oxalates, and Enzyme inhibitors that are naturally present in un-soaked nuts and seeds. Soaking and sprouting are a time-demanding process, that, when done correctly, unwinds trapped vitamins and minerals away from the anti-nutrients, while activating dormant enzymes within the nuts so that we can more easily digest them and assimilate their wide spectrum of nutrients into our body.
After becoming activated, the nuts and seeds are then lovingly dusted with a proprietary Ayurvedic-inspired blend of well-researched Adaptogenic herbs, Superfood Mushrooms, and plant-based prebiotics.
The combination of activated nuts, seeds, superfoods, and adaptogens all combine to form a divinely delicious superfood granola. Yogi Granola was originally formulated as a functional food for Yoga practitioners and Meditation enthusiast. Yogi Granola is now available to all who desire healthy food that supports the mind and body without sacrificing taste.
In this increasingly toxic and stressful time in which we live, Superfoods and Adaptogens are essential for anyone trying to cultivate wellness.
To buy Yogi Granola, click here now.