Granola

by Eva Strand, from the April 2000 Newsletter

We have about 20 different kinds of granola available at the Co-op—quite impressive. On top of this, there are also a few packaged varieties of cereals and boxed hot instant cereal. Our buyer, Vicki Reich, picked eight varieties for this month’s taste testing—we only tasted the bulk granolas.

The Super Natural granola was full of crunchy surprises like puffed corn, nuts and raisins. Most surprising of all was the distinct mocha flavor—this could be good or bad depending on your relationship with coffee—I liked it.

Golden Flax Crunch was well liked by everybody on the tasting panel. These flakes have a nutty clean flavor of corn and whole grain. Another favorite was Heritage Raspberry full of puffed rice, raspberry flakes, whole raspberries and nuts, although a few of us thought that Heritage Raspberry was too sweet.

If you are looking for a chewy, not too sweet granola saturated with nuts, seeds, and grains you might choose the Moscow Food Co-op Granola. "This would be great with yogurt" was the most common spontaneous reaction to the flavor and texture of the Co-op granola.

Another winner is Low Fat Strawberry/Raspberry Granola. This granola is ‘glued’ together in big yummy crunchy clusters and the berry flavor is genuine and lovely. Among the kids this was one of the two favorites. The other granola favored by children was Hemp Plus with a buttery, cookie-like flavor. The clusters of Hemp Plus are big, light and airy, filled with seeds that look more like flaxseeds than hemp seeds. Funny that the two granolas highest and lowest in fat content would be the winners among the kids.

AOK granola is a bit different with a spicy warming flavor of cinnamon, cloves and allspice. The most noticeable ingredients are the pumpkinseeds (boosts your zinc intake) and dried cranberries in a crunchy whole-grain base. AOK does not contain wheat or oats—quite unusual for a granola.

Lowfat Organic Cranberry granola ended up with the short stick in this contest, not because it didn’t taste great, but because everything else tasted better. Lowfat Organic Cranberry is crunchy and dry with oats and cranberries, low in sugar and fat.

Remember, beyond breakfast, granola is also yummy as a topping over vanilla ice cream, used as "crisp" in Apple-crisp, as a coffeecake topping, or in your favorite granola bars or oatmeal-raisin cookies.

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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