The reason is that the violent processing required to make boxed cereal (called extrusion) is so high in temperature and pressure that the proteins in the grains are completely denatured and rendered toxic from the ordeal. Organic boxed cereal is the most toxic of all because it is whole grain and therefore higher in protein!
Toxic foods are frequently the most addictive (think MSG and aspartame/nutrasweet), so even though it is difficult, you simply must eliminate these foods from your pantry for good!
I just cringe when I see parents giving their toddlers Cheerios and other boxed cereals as finger foods. If these parents only knew how toxic these foods are, perhaps they would think twice about handing it out so freely to their children.
The good news is that you can make a very delicious, healthy alternative yourself at home!
Below is Part 1 of how to make healthy cold breakfast cereal. Click here for Part 2 and the full written recipe!
*This vlog is shared at Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Fridays, Two for Tuesdays, 5 Dollar Dinners and Pennywise Platter.
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{ 106 comments… read them below or add one }
At the moment the video is private so we can't watch it!
Hi Arielle, thanks so much for letting me know! I have changed the Youtube setting to public, so you should be good to go now. I frequently shoot these videos in advance and keep the setting on private until they are posted on the blog – just too early for me today I guess!!
Hi Sarah,
I'm one of those, like you mentioned in this video, who's trying to find what to do with my excess milk. You mentioned putting it in the fridge with an big "S" for sour. Firstly, did you clabber it by leaving it out and then add it to your jug? Also, are you saying that you continue to add to this soured milk on a weekly basis and keep this same bottle in the fridge indefinitely? If so, isn't there a point in time when it becomes unusable?
I REALLY need to find some good uses for my excess milk!
Thanks…
Hi Dale, I let my sour milk clabber in the fridge (it slows the clabbering way down this way). If I am going to make cream cheese/liquid whey with the sour milk, then I clabber on the counter to make it go quickly.
Good Morning, Sarah! Did you mean to say there are a lot of "additives" or that they are "addictive"? Just wanted to clarify! Thanks!
Boxed cereal is big time ADDICTIVE. Toxic foods frequently are addictive, so this is no surprise. MSG is highly addictive as is aspartame. Getting off boxed cereal is one of the very hardest things folks MUST do when transitioning to a healthy diet. You simply will not and cannot experience your best health when boxed cereal is a part of your life.
Hi Sarah,
What about using sprouted flour? Would you still need to soak in that case? I am currently unable to grind my own flour yet, but I'd love to try this when I get a grain mill!
I keep hoping my posts will work on here. So I'm trying again. I am not a raw milk person. Will regular milk work or will something like coconut milk, rice or oat milk work?
Also, does Tropical Traditions coconut oil have any allergen info on it? My daughter is allergic to peanuts and treenuts.
Thanks
Linda
Hi Sonia, just a guess as I have never made this recipe with sprouted flour, but I'm thinking that this cereal would probably be too crumbly if you used sprouted flour. Foods made with sprouted flour is so delicate – not sure how it would work for this particular recipe. The soaking also softens the wheat considerably to give it a much lighter texture to the final cereal. If you try it either with or without soaking, please post about the results. I would really like to know how that works out!
To make it dairy free, soak with equivalent amount of filtered water plus 2 TLB lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.
Did you coat your pans with anything to prevent sticking? And tomorrow, will we get to see the rest of the video? I hope!! This was quite interesting to watch! Thanks!
We have Celiac and try not to use too many grains. Do you think this would work with coconut flour or almond flour?
I tried it with half coconut flour and half brown rice flour… and had to change the whole recipe, as coconut flour absorbs a ton of liquid… we had to keep adding and adding… we started with clabbered milk, the right amount… but then added yogurt and some water until you could finally stir the stuff. So, being very unscientific, we just added more of all the other ingredients, to make up for it. It seemed like a big disaster when we baked it– it smelled great, but it was mushy inside and a little burnt on parts of the outside… I crumbled anyway, and dried it out, and it took ages… I think I should have crumbled it smaller as it was hard on the teeth, but surprise! It was GOOD, when it finally dried out. I like the lower carb and nutritious aspect of coconut flour, but I wonder, does it even NEED to be soaked, as it’s not technically a flour? Does soaking help it, or could one just mix it up and bake it without soaking? Anyway, some trial and error and collaboration might yield a nice, predictable result for coconut flour based dry cereal.
So, is sprouted flour just for making bread? How do you know whether to use soaked or sprouted flour when you are adapting a recipe?
Cool idea! And btw, if people want nice finger foods for baby, they can check out the Just Tomatoes company. Freeze-dried, organic fruits and veggies.
Whether you use sprouted flour or soaked flour is a personal preference. I prefer soaked flour for making cold cereal as in this recipe.
I did not coat the pans with anything. There is so much coconut oil in the recipe that the cake stays very moist.
The second part of the video will be posted tomorrow.
Yes, this recipe would work great with almond flour! I haven't tried it myself to see if the ingredient amounts require adjustment, but if you want to give it a go as is, it should work fine.
Sarah, have you tried it with coconut flour? (See my mishap above) We have nut allergies here. Do you think coconut flour needs soaking?
Hi Linda, regular store milk will never work like I show in the video. Regular milk is dead and will not clabber. Do NOT do this with pasteurized milk!!!
If you don't want to use clabbered raw milk, use plain yogurt from the store or water plus 2 TBL lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.
If using almond flour, would you still need to soak it?
You can do this a couple of ways. First, the almonds can be soaked and dried before grinding into the almond flour. Then, you would not need to soak with the clabbered milk like I show in the video. If you almonds were not soaked before grinding into flour, then you would need to soak the almond flour with the clabbered milk as shown in the video.
Hi Kate, yes you can reduce the maple syrup to 1/2 cup and add 5 drops liquid stevia.
One other question. Can you explain to me why it is ok to leave a dairy product(like yogurt) out of the refrigerator for so long? I've seen other things that have said to do that and have been wondering.
Thanks
Linda
Hi Linda, yogurt is alive – it has beneficial bacterial cultures in it the same as raw milk, clabbered milk, kefir, or buttermilk. Anything that is alive can be used to break down the gluten, phytic acid etc and be used as a soaking medium. Pasteurized milk is dead and has no beneficial cultures in it whatsoever and as a result would go putrid if you used it as a soaking medium and would not work at all.
I cannot wait to see part two! My children really like cold box cereal so I hope they will choose to eat this healthy cereal instead.
(Wouldn't have much of a choice if I'd stop buying it!)
Anita
Thank you so much for posting this. I have been learning so much from your blogs over the last few months – you have gotten me started on my way back to health. I am absorbing as much information as I can so that I can share it with my family and really nourish them. Just wanted to say thank you! I look forward to part two of this blog.
Sarah, I make a hearty porridge for my preschooler that I've been making since she was a baby – getting the idea from Super Baby Food. So I grind the grains I use and know soaking is important as well, I started that years ago. I soak with store bought keifer and in the fridge. I'd like to gravitate to raw milk and make home made keifer as I've been learning off your site… it just isn't happening today. 2 questions… should I continue to soak the ground up grains in the keifer (knowing it's store bought & I believe organic) and 2 – if I am soaking… should I soak on the counter vs in the fridge?
That is fantastic that you soak porridge for your child instead of using boxed store bought cereal! BRAVO!
Even if store kefir is made from pasteurized milk, it would have been cultured with good bacteria and would contain live cultures like raw milk, so soaking on the counter would be best. The bacteria are slowed down considerably by the coldness of the fridge and cannot break much down in this environment, so the counter would be the best choice for sure.
What a great idea!!! I will have to try this for my hubby. Thanks!
Sarah, thank you for this easy to follow video on such an important topic. I have missed breakfast cereal. Sally Fallon mentioned that people were making their own but I never new how. I am looking forward to trying this as soon as I find some whole spelt that I can grind fresh.
Just one question, Sarah, do you ever use that microwave in the background?
I don't use the microwave for anything that we eat or drink. Only to warm up heating pads for things like sprains and tummy aches.
Thanks for linking your video to Two for Tuesday. I bet a lot of people will be interested to learn about cereal, being that it's so popular.
Yikes! I fed all of my kids toxic finger foods! Thanks for sharing this with Two for Tuesdays this week…very informative =)
Hi Sarah! You are so cute in your video! I love that you make them, i really want to start doing that one day too. When I read the sidebar in Nourishing Traditions about what the big Cereal company executive said when the research scientist told him that extruded cereals were toxic it shocked me, it doesnt anymore! I love soaked oatmeal! I dont do a lot of grains anyway but my kids love soaked oat muffins for breakfast so we dont buy a lot of cereals anyway. Occasionally, my husband will buy them organic Cheerios and we put our own honey on them and raw milk–for a treat…Thanks for sharing this on the two for tuesday recipe blog hop. it is important info! Alex@amoderatelife
What a lot of wonderful information! I don't have a way to grind my own flour sadly. Are you saying I shouldn't bother doing this without fresh ground flour?? Thanks for linking this to Two for Tuesdays!
Hi Sarah,
Do you ever use a dehydrator? Also do you think a 'jerky' maker attachment for strips could be used for the cereal and have it come out more like 'flakes'?
I want to try this but hate to 'waste' the batter if it doesn't work. Any chance you have tried making the cereal batter into flakes?
Thanks.
Hi Betty, I have never used (and actually do not even own) a dehydrator. You cannot make cereal batter into flakes as this would require the batter to be extruded, which is exactly what they do in a factory which denatures the proteins in the cereal grains and makes them toxic!
Hi Christy, of course you can make this without fresh flour, it just won't be as tasty or nutritious.
Sarah:
From what I am gathering about flour is that you either soak it, dry it and then mill it OR you can just mill it and then soak the milled flour.
Are both the same either way you do it?
You can mill the flour and then soak it as I show here.
You do NOT soak the wheat berries, dry and then mill. In that case you would need to sprout the wheat berries, dry and then mill. There is another video to show this. You could also sourdough the flour. There are three different methods for preparing grains.
Hi Sarah,
I missed 24 hours and ended up soaking the flour for 48 hours. The top had a hard crust on it that I tore off and the rest of it seems to be fine but is definitely dryer than how yours appears in your video. Should I proceed or start over? Can you suggest any adjustments? Thanks so much!
Hi Erin, its fine. You did exactly the right thing – just take off the hard crust on top and blend the rest of the ingredients.
I have a hard time believing that box cereal is so detrimental to health. It seems that if this were the case, the results would be more obvious. I am speaking from personal experience- I love cereal and it has made up a measurable percentage of my diet for the past several years. Although I admit to not being able to lose weight, I would not say that it was Toxic- I exercise regularly and maintain a high energy level even with such a "toxic" food in my diet.
Also I feel that two unpublished studies to not an argument make. Is there any other evidence that extrusion actually damages and changes the proteins in cereal?
Hi Sara, the info on extrusion comes from the following essay which was gleaned by poring through industrial food processing manuals:
http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/567-dirty-secrets-of-the-food-processing-industry.html
It would be wise to heed the warnings. I know so many folks who are addicted to their industrialized food choices (cereal and protein powder are the #1 and #2) and then suddenly and tragically have their health deteriorate precipitously. You have no idea what this stuff is doing to your insides. The rat studies on the corn flakes tells the tale quite well.
Hi Sarah,
I hate to admit it, but I don't know how to follow a blog. I sent my e-mail in to the 'subscribe' option near the top of your page. I do really well with websites. Do you have one? Or just the blog? I also don't have any of the accounts to post a comment, so am anonymous. I am really interested in the information you share. There are a few things I would like to discuss with you, but not with my personal e-mail listed.
Thanks,
Katie
creationsintime@cableone.net
Still not convinced, but I am trying my hand at making my own cereal anyway, with your recipe
Seems easy enough, and I am trying to make more of our own food.
I had read the article at Weston A. Price Foundation already. It's not that I don't think that it's possible; it's just that I think that other countries would have done their own research and banned it by now if it really is so toxic to our health. I know in this country we are blinded to a lot of research on health, but generally other cultures figure it out eventually- are we the only country that eats boxed cereal?
Oh, and I did finally lose the extra 20 pounds, but not because my diet changed, but because I'm breastfeeding ! Maybe it will come back and maybe not…I'm hoping that adding in good fats and soaked grains will help the weight stay away.
Hi Sara, proteins are denatured quite easily at high temperatures .. this is the main reason why pasteurized milk is so allergenic – the fragile milk proteins are compromised to a great degree. It is also why low temp pasteurization is better tolerated digestively than ultra pasteurized where the proteins are so messed up they don't even fit together with the body's digestive enzymes anymore. The proteins in grains are similarly fragile and can be damaged at high temperatures. Extrusion is much higher temps even than pasteurization. Glad you are trying the cereal! That is a great step forward!
So the cereal was pretty good- Actually it reminds me of grape nut cereal (maybe because I used some almond flour also?)- Is grape nuts also made by extrusion?
If I remember correctly, grape nuts is all the same size granules etc. If that’s the case I would think yes it’s made by extrusion. Cereal is basically made into a slurry, injected into a tube and cut to shape.
Sarah,
Can you clarify when to clabber the milk in the fridge versus on the counter? I have made your cream cheese / whey before and so when I planned to make this cereal I went ahead and put all my sour milk on the counter. Is this ok? How long can it stay on the counter and how do you know it has clabbered? Can you then put the excess back in the fridge an use down the road for other things or once it stays out for a period does it loose its nutritional value. Thanks so much for all you do for us, I am plugging along getting more health wise everyday!
Hi Stephanie, clabbering in the fridge just takes more time than the counter. If you want to clabber faster, put it on the counter. It has clabbered when the milk and the liquid whey separate.
Sarah, I just made the cereal and it is YUMMY!!! I made it with kefir because that is what i had and I placed in dyhradator for about 12-13 hrs on 155 (saw another blogger do that) and I can’t believe how good this stuff is. Alot of bloggers said it tasted like raisin bran or grape nuts but to me those cereal taste like the cardboard box. This actual had a great taste plus so much better for you than the industralized stuff. Thanks for another great real food recipe!
So glad you like it Teresa. As a matter of fact, I’m out of fresh flour at the moment and am going to be grinding a bunch today to make a batch or two of this cereal for my family as we’ve been out for a few weeks and everyone is really missing it!!
GAPS approved cereal. Thank you Sara for your recipe. I used almond flour and 1 C of coconut flour and soaked it in home made yogurt plus I used honey as the sweetener. It didn’t look anything like yours, or even bake well, but after dehydrating it turned out GREAT!
Heather … would you write me a guest post for this blog with your recipe? MANY folks could benefit from this great idea. If you don’t want to write the post, can you email me the changes you made to my recipe with your website or blog so that I can be sure you get the credit? Thanks!!
thehealthyhomeeconomist@gmail.com
Hi Sarah, I found your blog through the “Is Your Flour Wet?” ebook and just tried your cereal. As a family, we were getting tired of oatmeal and missed the simplicity of the kids being able to make there own breakfast. So, I used rye flour, homemade yogurt, homemade maple syrup, 1/4 cup coconut oil (all I had left at the time) and a stick (1/2 c) of melted butter, everything else I followed exactly. When we got to the final product, we found it so hard and crunchy, tasted great, but we ended up putting warm milk on it and letting it soak up some to soften. Do you think the butter made it harder, or the rye flour, or maybe my pieces are just too big ( I had kid help)? I am going to pulse the rest in my food processor and try it that way. Thanks for the recipe ans the response! hugs, Jen
Jennifer, from my experience with baking and eating all things rye (i am from Russia, where rye is used alot), it is probably the rye that made it so hard. rye bread is extremely dense. i would use a different flour next time….
I just want to say I am very surprised to see you using a plastic container for your milk.
.@gfraggle99 The coffe cake (into cereal) recipe can be found here: http://j.mp/oBF2Wr (the actual recipe is printed in part 2)
I too was surprised you had the milk in a plastic jug. Anyway…do you have a tutorial on how to clabber milk? Thanks!
what about Flax Plus® Pumpkin Raisin Crunch ? i found you looking at how to make my own
I made the recipe into a coffee cake with walnuts and dates on top for my family and they loved it! Thanks, as former cereal lovers we are so happy to have our cereal back!
This is great…loved it and so did the kids. Making more tomorrow! Can you add cocoa to it? and how much?
Love your site! I have some flour on hand that I soaked and sprouted then ground. Should I soak it again in kefir? I would think I need to in order to get the consistency right, but does it make a difference nutritionally? Otherwise, I’ll just grind the grain, then soak it as you do. Thanks!
Greetings and Thanks,
I am gluten intolerant and am wondering whether this would work with brown rice flour, or a combination of that and coconut flour… or even all coconut flour (for the low carb cereal!), though that might not taste as good or have as good a texture… have you or has anyone tried these things? I am terribly allergic to nuts and seeds so none of that for me… Thanks!
Sarah, we are dairy free in our house, can you use anything else to soak with.
Thanks1
Made this the day before yesterday, and my kids just love it! My daughter (who loves milk, but not on her cereal) just munches it by the handful. I’m enjoying it with sliced banana. It reminds me of GrapeNuts, which I love and miss. Thank you so much!
I can’t hear any sound on your video. Trying this for my husband who eats “healthy” boxed cereal every morning and insists on giving it to our 2 year old as well. He stopped eating my other granola I made him, so hoping this will work. At least maybe he’ll pour my daughter a bowl of this instead.
Sound works now all of the sudden.
If I use sprouted flour do I still need to soak the flour?
Hello Sarah,
Last week I tried to make this breakfast cereal as this is one of the main bugbears in our house when trying to find alternatives to boxes of cereal. I have some notes for myself for things I need to change next time to make it better but the main problems I had were that my oven does not have a low heat setting – it’s lowest is 300 degrees so I wondered if there were any alternatives for that particular step? Also, over here in the UK, most maple syrups come under Grade 1 or 2 not A or B – I assume this this is the same principle as the one in your other article?
It came out a little biscuity and my son didn’t enjoy it so much so I’ll need to try again I think. I made my with raw milk kefir.
OK, I’m going to ask a third time… has anyone tried this with coconut flour alone, to get a low carb version? Does it work? Maybe I’ll have to be the guinea pig. But since coconut flour doesn’t have bran/phytic acid to break down, I am thinking it won’t have to soak overnight, but maybe only an hour or less. I made a second batch that was brown rice flour and coconut flour together, and it was lovely. It worked to break it into smaller pieces– easier on the jaws.
very excited that there is something else to freak out about. my mother and I both ate Cheerios as babies and we’re fine. at this rate we won’t be able to eat anything ever. guess what? the air is toxic that we breathe, so maybe we should find a way to make that in our own kitchens.
clicking on the link gave me a trojan horse
I wanted to buy some, but it was the same price per pound as grassfed beef! 0_0 I can’t seem to find any other suppliers either.
@Amanda do you have AVG as your anti-virus? If so, there is a problem there with it giving false positives. I got one myself the other day, but my site is clean.
yes. thanks for letting me know
@Amanda, can you email me the message you got? thehealthyhomeeconomist@gmail.com
it says threat js: redirector-Ma – and its avast not avg
I bought some einkorn berries about a month ago and have yet to use them. Should I grind them and soak or sprout them for this recipe?
I have same problem with Avast… it says trojan horse blocked.
what do you think of popped amaranth cold cereal?
AVG will not let the link come up
Where do you get your einkorn & what do you consider the best uses for it? It is rather pricey. But sounds nutritious.
http://growseed.org/einkorn.html
This had a threat warning attached – thankfully AVG caught it.
I tried to make pancakes out of it freshly ground and they would not cook through or thicken no matter how much flour I added. What am I doing wrong?
Do you still soak over night when making homemade cereal with einkorn?
Wow, I never even thought about making breakfast cereal before. My kids are going to love this too.
Could one use emmer wheat grains when making this recipe?
The reason people still eat boxed junk is because they don’t know how to research. Some don’t have the money or time to prepare anything either so convenience wins even if there are healthy and fast ways to make food. People will always goes for premade food.
@Helen absolutely! Use whatever wheat you would like. And if you want to go grain free, try this one: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/homemade-cold-breakfast-cereal-grain-free/
Thank you very much healthyhomeeconomist!!!
I made it with regular whole wheat a while back, but it was just too hard. It smelled wonderful though! did I do something wrong?
as in popping it yourself, naturally, not at a factory. i found a recipe for this and it sounds wonderful. amaranth is really healthy and can be found in the wild, unlike this wheat not many can afford. http://www.edibleperspective.com/home/2011/2/2/diy-cereal.html
Hi Sarah,
Where do you buy einkorn flour? I’ve never heard of it before.
Thanks,
Crystal
Help! I have begun making this with wholemeal wheat flour and realise you suggest white flour in the video. My batter is very stiff so do I need to add more liquid? The ingredients have cost me a fortune I don’t want to mess this up. Please help. Kim
Oh and I’d better addd- I used yoghurt as a soaking medium. I realise I’m not likely to get an answer in time, so I’ve added another half cup of liquid. Is this going to be ok?
Made it & love it, turned it up a notch with cocoa, more oil, and honey, & a tad more salt and it rocks!
Also, you can make a very yhin rinny batter to coat the bottom of a jelly roll pan and bake in several batches for flakes.
Can you make this cereal using oatmeal? Also, I sometimes eat the “Ekieal” cereal, which is the sprouted cereal. Would this cereal also be considered toxic? Thanks so much for these video’s. Very useful information.
Can I leave out the oil I can’t digest oils or butter,could I maybe sub creme fraiche for the buttermilk instead of using oil or butter?
I see a lot of people (GAPS, etc.) are substituting almond flour and I always thought the oils in almonds were too delicate to be exposed to high heat without turning rancid. Is baking with almond flour ok?
Also, does anyone have a good brand for the maple extract? I was disappointed to see that the Frontier brand has soy, and contains no real maple at all.
Made a 1/2 batch to give it a try last night. By this morning, the cereal was “done” and my daughter LOVED it. She said “Forget the other stuff, I want this!” and is on her second bowl. The “other stuff” is organic oats cereal…looks like we’ll be finishing up the “other stuff” and making this instead!! Thanks for the recipe.
How about Ezekiel sprouted cold cereal (boxed) which is sprouted then baked?
Do you think it is OK?
I ground my flour a little to course but I thought it would still work. but after I mix the ingredients in it wasn’t gluey like yours. I added a little more kefir (used clabbered milk to soak it) after all the ingredients and it seemed to be a little better but still not very gluey at all. does that mean it didn’t soak properly? it did seem pretty dry when I opened it to put in the ingredients. But I did the exact milk to flour for soaking that you said so I thought that was how it was supposed to be. Is it going to work do you think?
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