Tigernut Cereal (Sweetner Free, Low Carb and Paleo)

Are you ready for adult cinnamon toast crunch?

People generally think cutting entire foods out of staple meals is so scary that all staples no longer fit into your red stapler body and it’s going to burn down. (Office Space reference, if you have not watched it then you have the Internet and thus no excuse not to. You can even leave me to go watch it right now…I’ll miss you though). 

For this body, food has never tasted so mouth dripping blissful. I love the way food feels and tastes going in me, and the energy it gives me throughout the entire day to connect to life in. 

My body no longer has dairy, fruits (except for bursting berries of mouth pleasure, lemons, and lychees), root veggies, sweeteners or most carbs. If you had told the high school energy drink’s laced in sour patch kids Ainsley what she would grow into she would have sprayed you with her specialty sour spray mix (it was marinaded in warheads).

If you meet me back then go ahead and say future me created an AIP cereal recipe on her little blog and watch me plotz all over you in excitement (I loved health even then, just didn’t think 3 energy drinks a day was bad if I still had spinach).

Now my throat burns at even the touch of soda but it smiles over organ meats and maca powder. The first time I tried maca powder there was no bitter, the ancient soul of my body knew it and I swear I heard my ancestors dancing and singing through my head. 

It took many years to reach this point, and realizing more and more that I want every ingredient that enters me to benefit this mind. The idea of healthy was never gross to me. In fact, with those Monster energy drinks, or if I was feeling classic and cigar minded Red Bull, I would often still eat spinach at the dinner table. At first the stuff was gross, (as it is supposed to be as a bodily defense mechanism against poison) but eventually I favored it to most other foods. My body adapted and accepted every fiber of that green leaf. I also loved eggs, bacon, fruits in high abundance, cottage cheese, sauerkraut, and kale.

Now I still eat eggs, bacon, berries, and have just added a much larger range of veggies to my taste bud reservoir.

All of the above words are meant to be encouragement for if you are looking at/wanting to change lifestyles, or have learned that you have to. Despite where you are in your food journey it is possible to change it and feel incredible while doing so, with amazing foods just waiting to be inside you.

Auto Immune Paleo (AIP) is an allergen free approach to the paleo diet and is used to cure chronic illnesses. The ones I care about are of the mind. To cure yourself of malfunctioning connections that lead to ADHD, depression, OCD, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, autism and all of the other mind illnesses there is ‘no cure’ for. All mental disorders actually can be seen, just in the brain, and most have nutrient deficiencies already scientifically linked to them.

Food was the only thing that cured them for me and the mental lack of control comes back every time I cheat.

It cuts out everything your body might be allergic to or is allergic to. This diet would make an incredible elimination diet if you’re looking to see what foods work for you. The elimination diet is a simple concept of cutting out the foods your body might not accept for a week and then bringing ingredients back into you one by one to see how you react. Easy concept but hard to do. Well welcome to AIP. Here is the list of what it cuts out though: From http://www.thepaleomom.com/autoimmunity/the-autoimmune-protocol

• Eggs (especially the whites)
• Nuts
• Seeds (including cocoa, coffee and seed-based spices)
• Nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, sweet and hot peppers, cayenne, red pepper, tomatillos, goji berries etc. and spices derived from peppers, including paprika)
• Potential Gluten Cross-Reactive Foods
• Fructose consumption in excess of 20g per day
• Alcohol
• NSAIDS (like aspirin or ibuprofen)
• Non-nutritive sweeteners (yes, all of them, even stevia)
• Emulsifiers, thickeners, and other food additives

 This list is probably the most extensive one I’d ever seen of foods to cross out. Actually keto was probably just as extensive but I’m too used to it to remember now.

Luckily there is a great new flour that is AIP friendly and is splurging out all over the blogger world. Tiger Nut Flour is the newest flour to cross them all. It is actually a root vegetable and is perfect for the primal mind since our East African ancestors used them as a staple part of their diet according to a recent Oxford study. This post is long enough though so if you want to know more about the tiger nuts click here.

My favored thing about the tiger nut is that the nut is so sweet you don’t need to add any sweetener to your recipes. For added sweetness you can simply add more raspberries or blackberries to this delicious cereal. 

The Taste

This cereal is so delciious to the human taste buds that my very picky twin said it was ‘really good’. Yeah. We actually fist bumped after I squeed in delight and she smiled as she chewed it more. Abbey is basically the person that tells me I’ve gone too creative in a recipe. Oddly enough this recipe is among the most creative when it comes to ingredients.

I personally love the stroke of maca into the flavor and the crunch of the cereal is exactly like cinnamon toast crunch pieces. Oh I’ll have to make a cinnamon toast crunch version soon. That and Frosted Flakes used to be my favorite.

Inspired by The Primitive Pallet Hazelnut Mocha Cereal:

Ingredients for Tigernut Flour Cereal

1/2 Cup Goldeen Flax Seed Meal

1/4 Cup Tigernut Flour (?)

1/4 Cup Hemp Seeds (?)

2 Tablespoons Maca Powder (?)

1 Tablespoon Ceylon Cinnamon (?)

1/2 Cup Full Fat Coconut Milk (Make your Own)

1/4 Tsp Vanilla

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil (melted)

Best served with coconut milk <(^_^)>

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 for a slow bake or 300 for a quickie…ish. (30 minutes baking vs 1 hr 20 minutes for longer bake. I prefer the long bake for consistent heating).
2. Combine the dry ingredients into your food processor and pulse a few times.
3. Add the wet ingredients: vanilla, melted coconut oil and coconut milk. Process until a dough forms, scraping down the sides when needed.
4. Spread the batter out across a silipat baking sheet. The longer the dough sits the firmer it gets. I used coconut oil to spread it out evenly with no holes and as thins as you can get it.
5. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes at 200 or bake at 300 for 15 minutes then drop the temp to 250 and bake another 15 minutes.
6. Take cereal out of the oven and cut into bite size pieces. A pizza cutter works perfect. I used a sharp large knife because I don’t have a pizza cutter.
7. If any of the pieces are still poofy and don’t automatically break with pressure, bake them again at five minute and keep on checking every five minutes after (you don’t want to burn them).
8. Turn off the oven and put the pan back in for 1-1.5 hours for maximum crispiness.
9. Let cool (takes about ten seconds of blowing right out of the oven) before eating.

Visual Tutorial

Pulse your dry ingredients together in a food processor. Add the wet ingredients and pulse until it turns into a batter, scraping down the sides once or twice. Spread the batter onto a silipat with as few holes as possible:

Use oil if it begins to stick to your hands:

Bake at 200 for 1 hour and 30 minutes or at 350 for blank

Remove from oven and cut into shapes (a pizza cutter works wonders but I just used a sharp large knife.

Stick the cereal back in the oven and turn it off so they completely dry out. This takes about 1-1.5 hours.

Once dry make all of the pieces cereal size with your hands and then put them onto a board and bring them outside:

Let Nodame sniff but not eat, she is not human:

Nutrition Breakdown per 3/4 Cup

Tigernut Cereal (6 Net Carbs Per Serving)

Calories: 222.2

Total Fat: 17.6 g

Potassium: 159 mg

Total Carb: 13.3 g

Dietary Fiber: 7.2 g

Sugars: 3.3 g

Protein: 6.5 g

DV: Vitamin C 3%, Vitamin B-6 5%, Vitamin E 2%, Calcium 5.2%, Copper: 15%, Folate 5%, Iron: 17.8%, Magnesium 25.5%, Manganese: 2%, Phosphorous: 13.3%, Riboflavin: 2%, Thiamin: 10%, Zing 12%

Hazelnut Cereal (Low Carb/4.2 Net Carbs Per Serving)

Calories: 237.2

Fat: 20.1 Saturated: 8.3 g, Poly 3.3 g, Mono: .5 g

Potassium: 106 mg

Total Carb: 9.5 g

Fiber: 5.3 g

Sugars: 1.6 g

Protein: 7.3 g

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Total Fat:3.5 g

Saturated Fat: 0.5 g

Sodium 210 mg

Total Carb 24 g

Vitamin A, C, and Calcium 10% DV, Iron: 25% DV