No-fat granola (THM - E)

One thing that I've missed on my THM plan is my homemade granola. I don't really care for oatmeal (okay, I'll be honest. I don't ever eat it.) but I do like oats in the form of granola, bars and cookies. I looked around as to how I could remake my granola recipe to be THM friendly. As it is right now, it's in crossover territory because it mixes carbs (the oats) with fats (the nuts). The book has a recipe for an all-nut granola, making it an S but I really wanted an all-oat granola, making it an E. The problem, besides eliminating the nuts, was eliminating the oil. Although I have reduced the amount of oil in the original recipe, it still has quite a bit of oil in my granola recipe. I needed to find a way for the sweetener to bind with the oats. I decided to try egg whites. That would keep it in E territory and add some much-needed protein to the recipe! (I eat it with 0% fat Greek yogurt for even more protein.)

Here's the recipe, in the rough. I plan on tweaking it some more but it wasn't bad for the first go round. I think it could stand to be a little sweeter and I might consider adding a teaspoon or two of coconut oil next time to help make it more "wet". I'd have to run the numbers to see how that would affect the fat grams. Gotta stay under 5 grams of fat to keep it an E!

No Fat Granola (E)

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
2 tablespoons nnsweetened coconut flakes
1 egg white (was a little dry, will try 2 next time)
1 tablespoon unsweetened almond milk
2 teaspoons truvia
dash of Kal stevia extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spray a baking pan with Pam. Mix first two ingredients together. Mix egg white through vanilla extract in a bowl. Pour over dry mix. Spread out in a pan and bake, 30 minutes, stirring every 10 mins.

Serving size: 1/2 cup

173 calories, 30 gr carbs, 4 gr fat, 7 gr protein.
With two egg whites: 179 calories, 30 gr carbs, 4 gr fat, 8 gr protein.