Coconut-Cherry-Chocolate Breakfast

When I recommend eating oats for breakfast, a lot of people/clients tell me they hate oatmeal.

For a while, I didn't understand this. The instant oatmeal packets of my childhood never bothered me at all.

When I became a heath coach, I began to understand the problem. See, instant oatmeal packets contain a lot of sugar. Well, the ones I ate did. Up to 13 grams of sugar! That's about 3 teaspoons. That is a lot of sugar and I don't see myself putting 3 teaspoons of sugar into a bowl of oatmeal these days. If I tried eating my oatmeal plain, that wouldn't taste so good, so I can see why my clients are struggling to find a good balance.

Here's what I made the other day and it was not only tasty, it had no refined sugar AND was jam-packed full of nutrients. I think the key to enjoying oatmeal is to change it up a bit, add things to it and always remember how awesome it is for you. If you consider that eating it is doing GOOD THINGS for your bod, as opposed to how delicious but nutritionally-void other things can be---it helps the oats go down easier.

That's my opinion, anyway.

Here are two recipes for this tasty mixture---try both and leave your comments!

Chocolate-Cherry-Coconut Oats (or Quinoa)

1/2 cup instant oats or leftover cooked quinoa
1 Tbs dried cherries
1 tsp raw cacao powder (don't be scared--it's cocoa that hasn't been processed or combined with sugar)
2 Tbs coconut milk (the real thing, out of the jar/can. The one in the container will do, too.)
1 tsp raw shredded coconut
dash of cinnamon
1 tsp maple syrup or raw, local honey (these are sources of sugar, yes. But they are natural and come from the earth with little to no processing.)

Combine the oats, cherries, coconut and coconut milk in a small pan over very low heat. Warm, mix into a bowl with raw cacao powder and maple syrup. Enjoy!


Chocolate-Cherry-PB-Coconut Oats

1/2 cup rolled oats soaked overnight in water
1 Tbs of fresh-ground peanut butter in place of coconut milk
(same ingredients as above)

Strain the soaked oats and rinse them with clean, fresh water. Return to bowl, add peanut butter and the other ingredients listed above. The peanut butter will replace the coconut milk for your fat source and add some additional protein.  Eat this cold or only slightly warmed. Experience the texture of soaked oats without warming them before you eat them. What do you think?!


Now you have some inventive ways to enjoy your oats.

I would have added a picture of the finished product but, quite frankly, the end result isn't exactly photogenic. When you mix raw cacao powder into anything, it turns very brown. That's all I'll say about that. ;)

Each of the ingredients above adds some essential, awesome nutrients to your day. Do some research and see what you discover. Can you believe you'd get that much nutrition in ONE BOWL of food?

ENJOY!