Low Carb Cereal - Where's it at?

Cereal - an American favorite

Cereal is a staple not only of the American diet, but also of much of the rest of the world.  Every day, tens of millions of people sit down at breakfast and pour a little milk over their dry, packaged cereal (or home-made if they're resourceful).

The dilemma is that millions of Americans are also beginning to adopt low-carb and/or Paleo diets.  As a consequence, more and more people are trying to avoid excess sugars, carbohydrates, and grains such as wheat and rice.  You may very well be one of these people - I certainly am.

The question then, is where is all of the low carb cereal?  Surely there must be at least a few major brands out there with a cereal that contains no grains and no carbs?  Right???

Is this really the only low carb cereal?

The sad answer is an emphatic NO.  There is none.  There are a few cereals that claim to be low carb, either on their packaging or by virtue of their name.  And while they may be slightly lower-carb than the sugary kids cereals that we all fondly remember, they are most certainly not anything approaching low carb or often even low sugar.

Furthermore, even for consumers who are not particularly worried about limiting their carbohydrate intake, but who may be concerned about limiting their intake of grains due to general toxicity or perhaps a particular condition such as Celiac, there are practically no cereals on the shelves of any supermarket that are made grain-free.  While products made from rice are generally safer than products made from other grains (due to the fact that rice is much less toxic in general), most of the rice-based products on the market are highly processed and often bleached, such that there is little to negative nutritional value in such products.

Above all else, most cereals contain added sugars, which none of us benefit from.  Whatever diet you're on, if you're on one at all, processed sugar plays no healthy role, and more and more scientific evidence is building up on the detriments of consuming fructose.

Personally, I'm astonished that there isn't yet a good low carb cereal on the market, but perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, as most of the other low carb products I see (mostly in the form of bars) are both disgusting and relatively non-nutritious (sugar alcohols anyone?).  I think we all know that it's healthier in the end for us to actually eat whole foods, but the fact of the matter is that I just find it easier to have a bowl of cereal in the morning, and I'd like for someone to satisfy that need.

All There Is To Know About The Low Carb Diet

The low carb diet became popular after Dr. Atkins popularized it in the 1970s. However, the diet did not get its start during that time. For centuries, man has been consuming low carb foods. It wasn't until the twentieth century that the wonders of grains gained mythical proportions. The wheat and other grain industries started advertising to made bread and pasta seem like it is an essential part of your diet! That is not true. High carb cereals were also introduced to the market, but why eat them when you can have low carb cereals instead?
Italy and Japan have been used as examples due to the longevity of the people living there. But don't they consume a lot of carbs out there? Although our images of Italians consist of them eating pasta and pizza for every meal, the truth is that they rarely eat it. The same goes for the Japanese. Although rice is important in their diet, they usually eat only a very small bowl each day. Also, rice happens to be healthier than many other grains.
It is not uncommon to hear people asking for low carb diet advice. It is quite simple, really. You only need to steer clear of sugar, desserts, breads, and potatoes. Avoiding those four items will take you closer to your goal. Desserts are particularly difficult for people to let go of. They have become such important fixtures in our meals, but fret not, because you can try out low carb desserts! You don't have to abstain from desserts altogether. Many websites list detailed recipes for low carb desserts. Compared to other desserts, the carbohydrate content in these desserts are lesser.
If you want to ultimately lose weight, you should keep a close watch on the amount of calories you take in. Often, low carb dieters end up eating too much fatty foods when they are aiming to lose weight. While it is true that eating low carb foods will keep your weight down, you can speed up the process by decreasing your calorie intake. Therefore, stay away from bacon!
I often find that I naturally eat fewer carbs when I'm on a low carb diet. I typically get an omelet or fried egg. You can spice things up a bit by adding some soy sauce, hot sauce, or salt. These work great in adding taste to the eggs. For lunch, a salad is good to get some more vegetables. Put some protein into it as well so that you won't be hungry quickly. Salmon, tuna, and eggs are great protein items to add in. While salad dressings are generally high carb, there are also very good low carb dressings, such as Caesar dressing, olive oil, and vinegar.
Have the perfect and healthy dinner by having grilled salmon, roast beef, and some low carb spaghetti and meatballs! Whip up some low carb cookies that you can enjoy for dessert if you still have room to spare in your stomach. It's not that difficult to start eating low carb. There are plenty of choices available for every meal. I only gave you a few suggestions for meal plans. Start from there and you are bound to find a lot more!

Why Low Carb Desserts Are A Must

You may notice you suddenly feel exhausted after consuming a yummy treat for dessert. It makes me feel like I'm groggy and slow - like my mind has stopped functioning. This becomes particularly difficult when you are in situations where alertness and presence of mind is required. This is one of many reasons why I decided to try low carb desserts instead.
Low carb desserts are similar in taste to other desserts. They are equally sweet and delicious. However, the main difference is that they are made from low carb recipes. That pretty much negates the presence of sugar and flour. Instead, low carb desserts are usually sweetened with a naturally non-caloric sweetener, such as stevia. This provides the saccharine-sweet flavor that is normally provided by sugar but without the added calories. The flour is often replaced with something like coconut flour, flax meal, or almond meal. This means your dessert will have high fiber content instead of being pumped full of carbohydrates. This fiber will in turn help your digestion and help slow down any glucose from entering your blood. You wouldn't have to worry about experiencing any sugar crash after a meal. So, you will stay alert and awake for longer.
But increased wakefulness is not the only good thing you can get out of this. Eating low carb desserts will also help you lose weight. Instead of sugar, these low carb desserts will be using non-caloric sweeteners that pretty much trashes all those calories you'd normally get from sugars used in normal desserts. There is nothing wrong with zero-calorie sweeteners except our perceptions of them. Many think these sweeteners are not natural at all but, really, can you honestly say sugar is natural, after all the processing it is subjected to? Besides, not all zero-calories sweeteners have been manufactured artificially. A plant has been extracted and this is what is now widely used in many countries and known as Stevia. Japanese people have been using Stevia for decades to fight sugar addiction and excessive consumption.
It is natural for you to be a bit of a skeptic about this. After all, can something with no sugar and no flour really taste good? We could spend hours and hours discussing just how much I love low carb desserts, but you won't have a clear picture of it unless you actually try these desserts yourself. It's easy to get hold of low carb desserts these days. Some you can purchase online, and some you can make yourself.
You can't fail to find low carb dessert recipes since there's so many of them around. I have only recently discovered a recipe for delicious low carb fudge! I just chanced upon the recipe on one of my online forays. They are very easy to make and the ingredients are very few and also easy to find. If it were any other recipe, you will be hard-pressed to look for rare and expensive ingredients. When cooking with these recipes and using ingredients that are unfamiliar to you, make sure you follow the instructions carefully. Also, be discerning when you pick your recipes, because not all of them are as low carb as you might think. There are cases where supposedly low carb recipes actually have very high concentration of carbohydrates.
There's not much more to say about this except that I hope you go out and find some great tasting low carb desserts. 

Try Low Carb Recipes Because....

It's easy to keep eating daily without regard to your health. When we reach a certain age and are feeling the ill effects of past bad habits on our health do we start paying more attention. Often by that point it will already be too late. We might already have diabetes or something even worse. It is easy to fool yourself into believing that you will never have any of those problems but when and if you do, you will be left with nothing but regrets. From the obvious trend of people having lots of health problems being diagnosed of late, it is quite possible that you will also be joining their ranks.
One easy way to look after your health without too much impact on your life is to only cook low carb recipes. It is not that complicated at all! No matter what you've been told, you will find that the taste of normal recipes and low carb recipes are not that hugely different. You've already had stew, steaks, salads and omelets. Low carb diets have those types of foods too!
People who are enamored with desserts find it really difficult to stick to their low carb diets. Fret not. There are low carb desserts! These taste just as good as normal desserts but can be eaten without any adverse impact on your health!
And it's not just health that a low carb diet can improve! Do you have an old dress that you can no longer fit into but you still want to wear? Here's your opportunity. A low carb diet can also be helpful in making you lose weight! With the amazing advantages that a low carb diet can bring you, why else would you contemplate trying other types of diets?
What low carb recipes can you easily attempt? We would end up taking ages and lots of pages to cover all of them. Let me just give you a rundown of the simplest ones.
It doesn't take a lot of effort to prepare a slow cooker roast. Just place your meat into the slow cooker with some spices or seasoning and some beef stock or soy sauce. Let it cook for about 8 hours on low heat. Note that different slow cookers will differ on cook times and temperature settings. You will end up with tender and juicy beef. The flavor will burst in your mouth, thanks largely to the seasoning and spices that you mixed in. The best part of this recipe is how effortless it was to make. You can even go to sleep as the slow cooker is doing its job and when you wake up, you have a mouth-watering dish waiting for your enjoyment.
Another low carb recipe that I truly love is cauliflower soup. I had always thought that soups would be really difficult to make, but this soup is very simple. You simply boil cauliflower in chicken or vegetable stock along with some herbs, salt and pepper, then proceed to puree the cauliflower in an immersion blender. You will end up will a smooth great tasting low carb soup that you can eat day after day!
These recipes are only two of the amazing recipes that a low carb dieter can enjoy. I could only hope that, if you want to learn badly enough, you will be able to prepare these amazing recipes and enjoy them.

What Low Carb Snack Are Out There?

Although we want to be healthy, we are still prone to human frailty. It is a Herculean task, to say the least, to avoid those sweet cakes and sugar cookies when we are so tired and famished. I always wish in those circumstances that instead of delicious look cakes and brownies or chips with dip, they had laid out some low carb snacks. Egged on by all that temptation and a hunger that won't quit, I would end up straying from my diet. Of course you'd hear people tell you to just eat small amount of food all day so you can avoid those situations, but that is easier said than done!
It's not as simple as described to carry snacks around throughout the day as a quick fix when you feel hungry. Most of the foods we cook for lunch and dinner don't fit well into a small bag or pocket. Plus there is that awkwardness of having to carry a spoon and fork around with you. Although low carb dieters can try so many low carb recipes, turning them into low carb snacks produce, at best, awkward and unsatisfactory results.
Ready to eat snacks should not require any more heating and they should also be easy to carry around without causing too much of a mess. Naturally, they should be tasty. Just because a snack is easy to carry around does not mean it is perfect, especially when the taste is not at all palatable. Now you understand why there are so few low carb snacks! It's just so difficult to meet all those criteria.
What low carb snacks can you have then? There are of course some low carb snacks. There's vegetables for example. Some stores hold celery sticks that are ready to eat in their inventory. You won't have a hard time carrying them around. Whenever you're hungry, you can simply bite into one. There isn't a lot of satisfaction to be had, though, since it is not really very filling. I always want something else to eat when I have just celery sticks!

Thousands Of Low Carb Recipes To Choose From

It never ceases to amaze people when they realize just how much low carb recipes are available for them to try. They are of the mind that giving up carbohydrates means sacrificing many of the dishes or foods they can consume. That, however, is not the case. You will find that there is an unlimited supply of low carb recipes virtually everywhere you look. You will be flooded and overwhelmed with low carb recipes even if you simply conduct a keyword search on Google. You can be as specific as you want in your search and you will still find it on Google. If you're not so savvy with the internet, then you can buy books with plenty of low carb recipes in them. Thanks to the following gained by low carb diets in recent years, people who want to follow them can now have easy access to many good recipes.
Naturally you would have to make sure that the recipe is indeed low carb and suits your diet. Differences in low carb diets largely depend on the type of foods that are allowed and prohibited. In some diets, the person should only limit himself about 20kg carb intake daily during the first few days of the diet. The Atkins diet is a classic example of these strict diets. Other diets allow a lot more carbs, but you'll usually lose less weight on those diets. These less strict diets are likely to permit 100g of carb intake daily. The Atkins diet, in later stages, does allow increased carbohydrate intake.
Most low carb recipes use ingredients that one does not normally work with in the kitchen, which is why you should pay close attention to them. For instance, normal flour is ignored in favor of coconut flour when making low carb muffins. Coconut flour is basically coconut flakes that are ground finely. Its low carb properties can be likened to that of wheat flour. It is high-fiber, high-protein but low-fat, making it a very good alternative. But in order to make it moist, you would end up having to use a lot of eggs. Before changing the recipe because you think you are putting more eggs than necessary, just follow the recipe to the letter. There's probably a good reason for the odd ingredients in the recipe.
Meats and vegetables are included in low carb recipes (other than desserts, of course). There are a lot of meats that you can try in recipes. Then you should also remember that there's a wide variety of products that can be made from each animal. Some low carb diets recommend eating the liver, heart, and bone marrow of a lot of animals. Variety in your dishes would increase, thanks to the unique and distinct taste that these organs produce. Variety can also be found in vegetables. A lot of vegetables are largely ignored simply because they are too uncommon or rare. Many different vegetables are included as ingredients in many low carb recipes. I recently discovered bak choy, which is consumed in many Asian cultures. This leafy vegetable is great when stir-fried with some garlic and ginger.
Low carb diets often increase the dieter's consumption of vegetables and meats. Dieters often not only eat more vegetables and meats but often more varieties too. This in turn means that there are a huge number of low carb recipes out there. Most low carb recipe books offer great choices. It's so easy, so what are you waiting for? Start cooking! 

Snax!

What are our other options then? Common low carb snacks include nuts. They are healthy and low in carbs. You can have your pick among the many flavors offered, even some in mixed packets. Some packets have dried fruits mixed in too. Just as these dried fruits and nuts gained popularity, so did the number of varieties being sold now in the market. Now you can have all sorts of exotic dried fruits and nuts, such as cashews and brazil nuts. Many food manufacturers now take it upon themselves to improve the quality and taste of these nuts. Unfortunately, some accomplish this by increasing the sugar content, making it unhealthy instead of beneficial. Be careful when buying nuts. Check that there is no sugar added to it. 
Finding healthy low carb snacks to munch on can be quite a chore. But it's definitely worth it. It can prevent you for going off the diet and cheating when you are hungry. You will be nourished with all the nutrients you need as well as keep your energy levels high.