Rip's Big Bowl (Modified)

As a fan of eating in bulk, for better or for worse, I was always looking forward to trying the “Rip’s Big Bowl” breakfast from the Engine 2 Diet book.  Rip provides the full recipe description on his website. So I don’t mind sharing the full details of it here.  This breakfast is basically an assortment of various cereals and fruits with a good dose of your favorite milk substitute (or milk if you are not vegan).  I found it quite tasty and filling, although I did make some modifications.  Bottom line, I would totally eat this again!

The basic recipe calls for: old fashioned oats, Grape Nuts, bite sized shredded wheat and “Uncle Sam cereal”.  For the life of me I couldn’t find “Uncle Sam cereal” so I substituted that with a  Ezekial 4:9 Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal.  To that you add flaxseed meal, raisins and walnuts; which I dutifully did.  Next you are supposed to add a banana and kiwi.  I’m not a huge fan of banana so I decided to have that on the side, or as a light snack shortly after breakfast.  The kiwi I replaced with frozen mixed berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries).

The last step is supposed to be sectioning a grapefruit, squeezing the juice over the cereal and then pouring the milk or milk substitute over that.  Personally, I think that’s going to make the meal way too acidic for my taste.  I may try such a step later on, but in the mean time I skipped the grapefruit entirely.

Taste and satiety wise this was a home run.  The combination of the various ingredients created a great texture and while the cereal wasn’t sweet by Cocoa Puffs standards, it actually had a good balance of sweetness.  Even without the excess liquid of the grapefruit there was more than enough liquid from the soy milk to make the overall bowl into a porridge consistency, which I like.  If you prefer to have a pond of milk at the end of your breakfast, you may want to add more milk or try the grapefruit trick and hope for the best.

Nutrition wise this is a solid meal as well, as you’d expect with a meal made of fortified cereals, fresh fruits, nuts and seeds.  Below you can see the nutritional information for the dry ingredients alone.  It’s a bit high on the calories for what I’m used to, at 505, but it has tons of fiber, half a day’s worth, a good amount of protein and a nicely rounded multi-vitamin mix.  Once you add the berries, soy milk and banana the whole meal comes to a good 700+ calories with an even better nutrient profile.  If you are only eating three times a day with light snacking in between that is exactly what you want.