An Ode to Granola and Coffee

Though it may seem a rather trite topic of conversation, I must say I am absolutely and completely enamored with the oat and the coffee bean as I get older. This post is really motivated by the fact that as a friend recently said to me, "A good granola is hard to find." And, the more I travel the world the more I realize a good cup of coffee is also hard to find.

The selection of one's granola of choice is clearly a deeply personal process and varies highly from individual to individual if one is to judge from the many options available at supermarkets and health food stores around the globe. Recently, my local grocery store discontinued the brand I have been eating for breakfast for the last 5 months and hence I am back on the market. As a creature of habit, I find this rather distressing and unsettling. I am somewhat particular and exhibit a great deal of brand loyalty to my cereals. My two favorites in the states are Kashi Oat Bran with Blueberry Clusters and Organic Cascadian Farms Oat and Honey Granola. I do really love the Kashi cereal but part of it may be the joy I have in sharing my blueberry clusters with Mindy in the morning. However, as neither of those are available in Germany, I do what I can to find reasonable replacements. The one I found this weekend is decent, though I might try a few more options before settling.

Through college and graduate school, I grew to love granola bars since they are delicious, nutritious and filling. When you need a long lasting burst of energy, a granola bar and a banana is a pretty good way to go. Originally, I started with the chewy Quaker Bars, which certainly have their place, but soon I found myself drawn to the crunchy Nature's Valley Bars. However, I always avoided coffee mostly due to the flavor. As I have gotten older and tried to figure out ways to deal with my slowing metabolism and changing bodily functions, my diet has become more and more important.

I should qualify this by saying that for the eight years of high school and college I ate rather poorly and sometimes not at all. There were missed meals, days when I would forget to eat completely and days of binging due to hunger. My friends likened my eating habits to a camel's drinking habits. Namely, I would store up for a day and go several with very little consumption. At the time, I could eat this way and sleep very little while continuing to be productive and in decent shape. If I needed caffeine, I relied on soda.

Then came graduate school. With the increased stress levels and truly being on my own, I began to cook and eat as a way to relax. Though I learned a fair amount about food preparation, I was neither paying particular attention to what nor to the schedule on which I ate. Since I was needing to be attentive and awake late into the night, I would drink a fair amount of soda to keep me going. As a result, I slowly put on weight. The stress and aging made my metabolism slow and I did not have the time or energy to pay attention.

Once I got through my exams and finally felt settled into my career track, I took stock and realized how unhealthy I had become. Though I tried various measures to counteract this at times with exercise schedules, reduced portions, or limited sugar intake, I just could not get back to a point of feeling particularly good. After graduate school upon finally getting out of the student health care system and procuring a real doctor, I had a thorough physical. It turned out my cholesterol was closer to high than I would have liked. The doctor suggested I do something about it since I was only 27.

I sought out high fiber foods, completely gave up soda, ate at more regular intervals, had one espresso and a banana every day at 2 PM, ate a healthy dinner of all natural ingredients before 8 PM and of course, true to the title of this blog, walked all over the place. Other than a small number daily push-ups, that was all I changed in my life. Before I knew it, my energy level was up, my productivity increased, the weight fell off and my cholesterol was down.

My favorite breakfasts these days consist of a bowl of a natural organic granola which is actually roasted, not raw, with no additives except perhaps a touch of honey served with either a good yogurt or skim milk. If I really need it, sometimes I will have an espresso in the morning also, but I prefer simply the after lunch coffee to energize me for the afternoon.

Personally, I have a feeling that humans actually evolved to rely on the dietary fibers in whole grains as well as the compounds and stimulants in coffee and tea for any kind of productive and healthy adult lifestyle over the course of our long evolutionary history. The truth of the matter is that youth fades on the inside and out so we would have evolved to thrive on naturally occurring substances to help our bodies process and store energy in a healthy fashion. After all, human lifespans began to increase after we became agrarian societies. Surely this happened for a myriad of reasons both societal and physiological, but in any case large sections of our genetics have come through generations upon generations where our ancestors ate and drank products from natural grains and plants. Surely there are genetic links between the success of the people and the species of food they largely consumed. It is true for predator-prey relationships certainly.

On a side note, I saw a medical study today linking coffee consumption during your adult life to a reduced rate of suffering from dementia. Though I am somewhat suspect of the statistics because it has also been shown that people with careers where your mind is kept active also have lower chances of suffering from dementia. There was no study comparing coffee consumption to mentally demanding careers, but surely there is a significant overlap there. Anyway that issue aside, it seems to support my theory that as adults we should drink a bit of coffee or tea every day. It keeps our wits sharp and minds active.