In the early 20th century, a Swiss physician named Maximilian Bircher-Benner evangelised a new kind of diet for his patients - one based almost entirely on raw foods such as fruits and oats. Initially, this mixture was softened with milk, water or fruit juice, and ended up being called muesli, ‘mues’ meaning mush or purée. Originally intended as a form of appetizer, it took a life of its own among the health-conscious and has persisted till today, well over a century later in several forms! Today, we do Muesli 101.
I think I shall never see, a breakfast as yummy as muesli
What does Muesli contain?A lot of goodness and… Oh, okay - you meant actual ingredients.
Well, one of the lovely things about muesli is how versatile it is. There’s no one standard recipe and people have made their own versions of it even from packaged muesli. In general, though, it contains…
Muesli is anything you want to make of it, in this case it’s the Soulfull Chocolate & Cranberry Pancakes
Oats: This super-healthy cereal grain brings with it a ton of nutrients, fiber and antioxidants. Every muesli you see will have a generous amount of oats.
Other cereal grains: Usual muesli ingredients include corn flakes, rye, barley, wheat flakes, or even quinoa. Soulfull’s Millet Muesli contains - you guessed it - lots of ragi, the superfood that brings with it several nutritional benefits.
Fruits, nuts and friends: Here’s where things start getting interesting. Depending on the variant and individual preference, a bowl of muesli can contain all sorts of tasty additions: from fruits (apples, banana, berries, apricot), dried fruit (raisins, dried berries), nuts (almonds, pistachio, pecans, walnuts, cashews, chia), seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin) and even coconut flakes and chocolate! Yum. Several of these ingredients end up acting as natural sweeteners, too.
The power of muesli AND goodness of ragi? Gimme.
Okay, that sounds delish. How do you eat muesli?
Slowly, with eyes closed, enjoying life and… Oh sorry. That’s not what you meant. You can have muesli in several ways, any time of the day (though, it’s normally a breakfast). Some of the most common ways are:
- With cold milk: The classic. Yum.
- With yoghurt / Greek yoghurt: This makes for a very aesthetic bowl, too!
- With fruit juice: Wasn’t this how Dr. Maximilian intended it in the first place? Orange juice would be a good option for this - the combination of sweet and tangy is a great way to start the day.
- Raw: We don’t judge. If you’re going to raid your larder in the middle of the day for a craving, then muesli is not a bad thing to reach for at all! Snack away.
- Soaking overnight
- With warm milk (for all you oatmeal aficionados)
- With nut butters
- Served with fruits for a truly healthy meal!
Muesli with yoghurt - makes for a yummy and very good-looking meal
Remember, if you buy a packaged muesli, feel free to add any ingredients you want. We heartily encourage our customers to make our own muesli in their own styles (as long as you don’t forget to send it to us on the ‘gram, yeah?)
Alright, I’m almost on board. But tell me again why I should have muesli?
We’ll give you five good reasons!
- It’s tasty: Hey, did you see that ingredients list above? Just the thought of crunchy flakes along with those dried berries all mixing with cold milk… mmmm. That cornucopia of flavours!
- It’s healthy: Goodness of raw ingredients as well as individual benefits of every single component, from the fiber in oats to the nutrients in ragi to the vitamins in the fruits. Muesli is among the most complete breakfasts you can have!
- It’s your dose of protein and fiber: While you’ll get a great dose of your minerals and vitamins, muesli is really good at getting you two components diets might miss out on. For example, one serving of our Fruit, Nuts & Seeds muesli comes with 6.6g of fiber and 6.4g of protein.
- Low additives and sugar: Because the ingredients are raw and keep well together, AND because there’s a lot of naturally sweet stuff in there, muesli tends to be healthy without compromising on taste. For example, our diet muesli contains absolutely zero sugar.
- Soulfull’s muesli also brings in the power of millets: We might be biased, but ragi is a superfood that can do wonders for you. This super-versatile ingredient is right at home in our millet mueslis.
And as you sit down with your bowl, don’t forget to raise a spoon to Dr. Maximilian, who started it all!
