Mocha granola

Recently, listening to a podcast about coffee (I listen to a LOT of podcasts), I heard the alarming fact that coffee is the number 1 source of antioxidants in the US! Apparently no other source even comes close – at first this seemed very worrying, as in the past coffee has been slated for having very negative effects on our health. However more recently there has been more of a focus on the health benefits of coffee and some scientists have even gone as far as disregard previous sentiments putting them down to other habits synonymous with a large coffee intake in many cases for example lack of sleep, poor diet and smoking.

Firstly, coffee increases the amount of fat we burn by speeding up our metabolisms and by providing the energy  we need to workout harder. The caffeine in coffee increases the adrenaline levels in the blood as well as releasing extra fatty acids which can be used as fuel through the increased breakdown of fat cells.Studies have found that there’s a greater increase in the amount of fat burnt in adults with normal BMI’s than in obese adults. It’s thought that chlorogenic acid is the compound responsible for the weight loss that coffee provides. Chlorogenic acid also lowers blood sugar levels and has an anti-diabetic effect. It seems to be that the amount of chlorogenic acid reduces in coffee as it is roasted so to actually get a good dose it’s best to take a green coffee extract.

Coffee has also been found to prevent many chronic diseases such as diabetes, parkinsons and heart disease. Recently lots of studies have been done to establish the link between coffee consumption and reduced liver disease. Coffee seems to reduce the amount of cirrhosis on the liver. Cirrhosis is basically where liver tissue is replaced by scar tissue which will eventually prevent the liver working properly.Drinking coffee reduced the amount of fat which accumulates around the liver which is thought to be the way that coffee protects us from cirrhosis. It even seems to be protective in people who drink a lot of alcohol! More studies are being done to establish whether coffee could actually be used to treat people with chronic liver disease.

Although these benefits sound great there are still a few negative effects of coffee.Many of these negative effects were associated with the amount of caffeine in coffee whereas whether coffee is caffeinated or decaffeinated has no significant effects on the benefits. One negative effect I did find is that drinking coffee stimulates the production of hydrochloric acid. This is produced by the stomach to digest food. It seems that we can only produce a finite amount and therefore drinking coffee early in the morning before food could mean we aren’t as able to digest food later in the day. I couldn’t find anything suggesting that drinking coffee with food had any negative effects on digestion sooooo why not incorporate it into your food with this recipe?!?

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee
• 2 teaspoons cacao powder
• 1 tablespoons honey
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 1/2cup oats
• 1/2 cup seeds
• 1/4 cup hazelnuts

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Melt the coconut oil and stir in the water, coffee, cacao and honey
3. Mix everything together in a bowl.
4. Spread on a lined baking tray.
5. Bake for 15 minutes. If you want to add some dried fruit stir it in when you’ve got 5 minutes to go.

04 Mar This entry was published on March 4, 2016 at 12:58 pm. It’s filed under Breakfast, glutenfree and tagged baking, breakfast, chocolate, coffee, coffee benefits, gluten free, granola, healthy breakfast recipe, liver health, mocha, oats. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.