Lynne Whelehan’s Porridge Power

At Fitness Adventure Travel we believe that the most important meal of the day is the meal that you start with – Breakfast. You can compare your body to a car engine where you need the key to start the car, breakfast is the key to starting your body and your metabolism for the day ahead and that is why it is vital to include breakfast into your daily routine and into your diet.

Here Lynne Whelehan talks about the health benefits of oats, pomegranates and flaxseed and has combined the ingredients together to create a recipe for how to make great tasting porridge, which will sustain you through the morning:

Starting your day with this easy, simple and nutritious recipe will help you power through the day. Oats, or Porridge as I call it, are by definition a whole grain with a mild creamy texture. Oats can be prepared in a variety of methods like cookies, pancakes, cereal bars and breads. Mixing and matching healthy combinations can inject bursts of flavour to a monotonous bowl of oats. For this recipe I added pomegranate, flaxseed, peanut butter, toasted coconut chips, and vanilla whey protein.

Health benefits of Oats include (Grotto, 2011)

Vitamin E & B.

Minerals: calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium, copper, zinc, iron and manganese.

Soluble Fibre: soaks up cholesterol lowering the risk of heart disease and lowers blood sugar.

Insoluble Fibre: helps keep you regular.

Health Benefits of Pomegranate:

Vitamin C and antioxidants (anthocyanidins)

Health Benefits of Flaxseed (Grotto, 2011):

Omega 3 fats

Soluble & Insoluble fibre – benefits lowering cholesterol, blood sugars and digestion.

Peanuts, although classed as nuts are from the legume family like beans and peas “Leguminosae Family”. A brand that I eat is Meridian peanut butter, which has no added ingredients like sugar, salt and palm oil. Peanuts are a good source of antioxidants (Grotto, 2011).

Lastly, I add vanilla whey protein isolate (WPI) to the mix. WPI contains high levels of protein with little fat or lactose. It is also a good source of branched chain amino acids (BCAA). BCAA are labelled as the building blocks for muscle repair and development (Grotto, 2011). This delicious bowl of porridge would be great before or after a gym session too.

Recipe

* serves one

40 g Oats

250 ml Coconut Milk (a brand I use is: Koko)

1 tbsp. Flaxseed

1 scoop Whey Protein

*toppings include: peanut butter 1 tsp, 10 g pomegranate, 10 g toasted coconut chips.

Method

Pop all ingredients in a small saucepan and cover with milk. Cook on low-medium heat.   Don’t allow it to stick to the bottom of the saucepan: stir regularly.

Once cooked remove from heat. Add whey protein and stir until well combined. You may need to add a drop of liquid here if it appears dry to help with the mixing.

Add all toppings and enjoy!

Be sure to keep me posted if you try and test these recipes by posting on Twitter: @WhelehanLynne or Instagram @makeandbakefromscratch #makeandbakefromscratch

Lynne Whelehan

References

Grotto. D, RD, LDN. (2001) 101 Foods that could save your life. Bantam Books. New York.

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