Health benefits of granola is it a hard fact or some myth from the old times. Don’t worry by the time you finish reading this post everything will become clear.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day it get us filled with energy but nowadays people rely on cereal meal or something unhealthy, sure pancakes sounds lovely but they don’t fall under the category of healthy food and if you are here to change that It’s good to know that you are trying to eat healthy and stay fit and want to know is granola a good choice to be included in your diet?… let’s find out.
Granola is made from oats, different types of nuts, seeds, and honey. All these ingredients scream healthy. Granola can be served with milk, fresh yogurt or blended with smoothies or it can be turned into a good healthy granola bar.
Granola is usually favorite snack for some hikers, or travelers because it’s easy to pack, nutritional, high in calories. sometimes mixed with honey syrup so it can be turned into a bar so that makes it easy to be carried as lunch.
Enough with the side talks, let’s get started…
Health benefits of granola
- Playing trick so you lose weight
Yes, I know granola is high in calories but hear me out granola is filled with fiber which helps you feel fuller for longer thus in turn if you feel full you will eat less that’s the basic understanding. This will keep your blood-glucose level in check and will help your prevent Insulin spike.
When you insulin level rises it will tell your body to promote storage of the fat and it will also block release of fat from fat storage. So if we avoid rise in insulin level it will in turn prevent you from storing fat so it’s beneficial if your goal is to lose some weight.
Some studies have shown that eating high fiber diet can help you in weight loss. So now you get it how will granola will play the trick so you lose weight.
2. Helps in digestion
It’s ingredient’s is the key they help you keep your digestion in check while also increasing healthy gut bacteria. When it’s compared with other refined packed breakfast cereals granola comes on top for helping your digestion process.
Healthy gut bacteria is simply live bacteria or some yeast that can be found in fermented food so when they are consumed they takes residence in the gut and improve your health.
Granola also get’s rid of the bad bacteria and improve your ability to absorb nutrients.
3. Strengthening your immune system
We all know purpose of immune system and we all try our best to keep strengthening our immune system. Stronger the immune system less the chances will be of you falling sick.
As the ingredients of granola scream healthy they are also packed with lot of anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Nuts is one of the prime ingredient in granola they are also rich in anti-oxidant and vitamin E which help in lowering inflammation in your body and anti-oxidant prevents cell damage.
Filling your immune system with these nutrients will surely strengthen it and it will became stronger than before.
4. Reduced Cholesterol level
As nuts help you strengthen your immune system, oat’s help you reduce your cholesterol level. Oat’s have a compound called beta-glucan which has proven to reduce your low-density lipoproteins also know as bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol clogs your blood vessel which can lead to heart disease or some other heart problem such as stroke, heart attack, etc.
While granola helps your reduce bad cholesterol it also promote production of healthy cholesterol which we require.
5. Reduced blood sugar level
Granola is rich in magnesium and is simple carbohydrates which prevent spike of sugar in your blood. Granola is helpful for people suffering from type-2 diabetes.
Magnesium is responsible for regulation of blood sugar and also prevent the release of insulin. Magnesium also plays major role in increasing the rate of wound healing, boosted production and regulation of sex hormones. It also speed up organ repair or cell repair while boosting production of new cells in your body.
6. Improved cognition
Granola is high in potassium and low in sodium which prevent blood pressure to rise. When our blood pressure id lowered veins in our body starts to loosen and stress on the system starts to reduce at the same time there is increase in blood and oxygen flow.
Increased blood, and oxygen flow will improve your cognition and will increase speed of the nervous response. Granola will help you improve your short-term and long-term memory, improving your concentration level and can prevent brain disease further in life.
7. Taste great and versatile
Taste’s great might not be a health benefit but it is kind of a benefit. One of the main reason people prefer unhealthy junk food is because it tastes good. Granola and muesli are two healthy food that fill in that gap they are the package of good taste with health benefits.
Granola is versatile too you can eat granola with milk, yogurt you can enjoy it with a smoothie, you just need to be creative.
This all benefits sounds good but sometimes there can be a downside too.
Downside of granola bar
I mean just look at the ingredients oats, different types of nuts, and honey. All these ingredients have been tagged as healthy food but do now this that all the granola bar or packed granola cereal are not made the same way there nutritional value can be different and depend upon the brand that made them and the ingredients used.
Yes you will say, I can just look at the label and check for myself which one is better that’s good but don’t just check the calories while some granola bars may have less calories when compared to others but more sugar content than the others so read the label carefully. Check the first 3 ingredients it should be whole food such as oats, dried food, and nuts. Notice if there is vegetable oil, or any artificial flavor added.
Check quantity sugar or any other sweeteners the particular reason for that is some granola have 15 to 17 grams of sugar in a single serving and usually people tend to eat more than 1 serving. Intake of too much sugar can increase you chances obesity, type-2 diabetes, heart diseases, and some type of cancer. We want to avoid that so check before you eat otherwise some changes will happen in health benefits of granola.
Try to find granola that contains less than 10 grams of sugar and 5 to 3 grams of protein and fiber.
Conclusion
Granola is nutrition and there are many health benefits of granola. With all the advantages and disadvantages do you still granola is a healthy choice?
Health benefits of granola makes it a healthy choice but you should open your eyes and check about the granola brand that you are eating. I got a better solution buy base ingredients and make granola bar as home. You will know what exactly is going into your body.
That sums up health benefits of granola, eat healthy and live a healthy lifestyle.