Wendyl Nissen: Crunchy breakfast inevitably sweet

NZ Herald·

18 Mar, 2016 04:00 PM3 mins to read

Vogel's Cafe Style Luxury Muesli $7.79 for 475g or 10 serves. Photo / Wendyl Nissen

Opinion by Wendyl NissenLearn more

The two adult children we have living at home have been hoovering through this muesli. They like the high level of nuts, seeds and fruit, the very crunchy, chunky texture and they also tell me it's been on a good special lately at $5.99 which is cheaper than a lot of other premium mueslis on the market. This muesli is certainly very challenging in terms of chunkiness and even carries a warning about that. "This chewy muesli has big chunks of nuts and fruit ... If you don't have strong teeth, this may not be suitable for you."

Vogel's Cafe Style Luxury Muesli $7.79 for 475g or 10 serves

Ingredients (in order of greatest quantity first):

Wholegrain Oats (53%)

These make up just over half of the muesli. Oats are a great gut food, very soothing for the digestive system and are high in fibre.

Dried fruit (21%) (raisins, apricots, rice flour, preservative 220)

Dried fruit is very tasty but it is also quite high in sugar and usually contains sulphur-based preservatives - in this case sulphur dioxide (220) - which some people are allergic to.

Banana chips (banana, coconut oil, sugar, natural flavour)

These are a great snack and provide a nice crunch in here. Again they contain sugar used in the drying process.

Coconut (preservative 223)

You can clearly see threads of coconut through this mix. They are preserved with another sulphur preservative, sodium metabisulphite (223).

Nuts and seeds (16%) (sunflower seeds, cashew nuts, linseeds, almonds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts)

The packaging says that 37 per cent of this muesli mix is fruit, nuts and seeds and you can clearly see these all through the mix. Nuts and seeds are a nutritional powerhouse full of minerals, vitamins, nutrients and valuable fibre.

Brown sugar

The sugar level in this muesli isn't as high as others I've seen but you still get 8.8g of sugar which is just over two teaspoons per 47.5g serve. I'm not sure who is going to get the scales out to measure exactly 47.5 g to put in their bowl, so chances are you will end up with more of this for your breakfast.

Manuka honey blend (manuka honey (2%), bush blend honey)

This adds to the sugar load.

Rice bran oil

This is a good oil as it is a good source of antioxidants and healthy fat. This is a reasonably low-fat muesli at 6.6g per 47.5g serve.

Glucose (preservative 223)

More sweetener in here with preservative sodium metabisulphite (223).

Cinnamon

This is a nice added flavour to this mix.

Natural flavour

Nice to see some natural flavour used here.

Vitamins (vitamin E, folate)

These will have been added because it clearly states that this is a "source of vitamin E and folate" on the packet.

My recommendations:

If you're a muesli fan then you're going to find it tough sourcing a product without sugar because it comes naturally in nuts and fruit and producers will often add it for flavour.

So the idea with this is a small serving will get you a long way - don't go filling up a huge bowl. And remember you can always get the nutritional value of oats by eating old-fashioned porridge and sprinkling it with a few nuts and raisins.