Muesli - why so many cals?!

I love muesli but I can't believe one serving has more than 400 calories! I've switched to a breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt and toast with green tea. I usually like having a bit of muesli and milk with a crumbled marie biscuit as a snack, but  even if I have just half a serving at 200+ cals thats quite a bit, isn't it? But the stuff is good for  you... what can you do?

 

Most mueslis contain dried fruit and nuts... both pretty calorific items even though they're very good for you. Dry oats are also 100 cals an ounce. Many mueslis have a lot of added sugar - check the ingredients list and the nutrition panel and choose 'sugar-free' muesli if it's available. Rather than working with 'a serving' (because manufacturers will always suggest something large so you finish the packet quickly!), try weighing it out instead.

Make it yourself. Its quite easy. Portion out your own amounts of oats, nuts and dried OR fresh fruit - then you can control how many calories the serving is. If you did 1/4 cup oats with a TBS of almonds and raisins for instance - that comes to 150 calories. Soak it in milk or water over night with some yogurt. If you want it to be more filling, you can easily used a chopped or grated apple in place of 2TBS raisins for the same calories. 

Firstly, don't buy toasted muesli because it's usually toasted in oil and is pretty similar to American granola.

Secondly, it's true that a lot of muesli varieties are high in sugar. However, just seeing on the nutrition panel that a brand is high in sugar doesn't necessarily mean added sugar - a lot of the time the sugar comes from the dried fruit. The ingredients list is the only place that will tell you if sugar has been added or not.

I'm surprised a serving of your brand came to over 400 calories though - how big were the servings they suggested you eat?

The muesli I buy has chestnuts, brazil nuts, jumbo raisins, sunflower seeds, oats and bran flakes and I can still eat 3/4 cup for around 200 calories.

Thanks for the replies! Yeah, I was surprised too! I had a lookie at the calorie content using CC's counter and Lowan's Apricot and Almond muesli apparently has 443 cals per serving (115 g)! I like snacking throughout the day and really only have one massive meal. The rest are just smaller bites and I like to keep them in the 150cal range, the MOST being 200. This finding puts a bit of a damper on my munching because I love muesli and thought it was a 'safe' food.

I too make my own muesli - I use oat and barley flakes as a base and then add raisins and nuts.  My son (14 yrs old) finally agreed to eat muesli instead of the boxed sugary cereals when I agreed to replace the raisins with dark chocolate chips.  I usually eat it with Greek yogurt (2% fat) - with 5 tbsps of muesli and 200 grams yogurt my breakfast is between 350 - 400 calories.

Original Post by styrz:

Thanks for the replies! Yeah, I was surprised too! I had a lookie at the calorie content using CC's counter and Lowan's Apricot and Almond muesli apparently has 443 cals per serving (115 g)! I like snacking throughout the day and really only have one massive meal. The rest are just smaller bites and I like to keep them in the 150cal range, the MOST being 200. This finding puts a bit of a damper on my munching because I love muesli and thought it was a 'safe' food.

How big is your main meal? I wonder if you are eating enough - even 200 is just a snack, not a meal. I suggest you stop categorizing food as "safe" or "unsafe" also - it's not a healthy habit to get involved in.

Your problem is in the serving size - 115g is a big serving. Half a cup is a pretty standard serving size for muesli.

lconalis - chocolate chips? I never thought of that, why did you have to put that idea in my head?! :D

Meryl - my main meal is usually 500-600 calories at dinnertime though there are rare days when it can be 800. I've become a bit overly-careful about what I eat since I moved into a sharehouse and now don't have grownups looking out for me. If I'm not careful I'll blaze through a jar of nutella in a week so I try to make sure there are no evil foods in my cupboard/fridge. Apart from sugar, biscuits and about 5 different kinds of cheese to satisfy salt cravings should any arise.

Also, i try to be careful when I'm at home because if I go out during the week, I'm likely to cater to my tastebuds more than usual and ignore my calorie count for the day. Mm, brownies!

 

I eat Muesli every day but a serving ( for me ) is 50g...115g is high. I take 100mL of semi-skimmed milk with it