Aug 21 2008
Healthy Hemp Bagels: A Review
An Important Question About the “Most Important Meal of the Day”
If breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, why is it so darned inconvenient to enjoy it? It seems like we have a choice between nutrition and convenience, with little in between.
Take, for example, the bagel. While it is convenient (can be eaten as is, or toasted, you can spread whatever sort of topping you want on it, and it can be eaten with one hand while you work), bagels don’t rate so high as health food. A typical grocery store bagel can have as many as 270 calories and 56 grams of carbohydrate, which isn’t so bad (if you aren’t watching carbs), but its nutritional content is relatively low.
(And watch out for the bagels being sold as a “healthy” alternative in fast food places: The multigrain bagel at Dunkin’ Donuts is 380 calories. These “gourmet” bagels may taste good, but they are also HUGE!)
A Different Kind of Bagel
The bagel conundrum vexed me until I discovered French Meadow Bakery’s Healthy Hemp Bagels at The Green Grocer in Chicago. These yeast-free, sweetener-free, organic grain (they contain several whole grains, as well as hemp) bagels are not only good for you (with 14 grams of fiber and 20 grams of protein per bagel!) but are also considerably lower in carbohydrates than most other bagels (34 grams of carbohydrate with 14 of those being fiber).
“But how do they taste?”, you may ask? Well, I think that they are delicious, but some people feel that they are too “grainy”. I do confess to a fondness for very dense, chewy, whole grain breadstuffs, so I’d be careful of you are a fluffy white bread sort of person. (They are definitely much improved by toasting, so I’d suggest trying them that way.)
The other thing that I love about these bagels is that they are super filling. I have one spread with butter or coconut oil for breakfast or lunch and it is 4-5 hours before I even start thinking about eating again!
I heartily recommend these bagels to anyone who either wants to add more whole grains to their diet or who is looking for a bagel that is compatible with a low carb diet. Yes, they are “different” from what you may be used to eating, but the differences are both nourishing and delicious. Healthy Hemp bagels can be found in gourmet markets and health food stores across the USA, as well as via mail order.
[...] read the rest of this blog post here… Healthy Hemp Bagels: A Review Share this post with your friends: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers [...]
Great post, I wonder when they will become availiable in Australia.. If at all.