Muddy Cook launch a great tasting, healthy breakfast cereal for children – Raspberry Crockles

Looking for a healthy nutritious breakfast cereal for your children? Organic artisan muesli maker, Muddy Cook have launched a toasted puffed muesli for children. Raspberry Crockles are puffed whole grains – rice, spelt and quinoa, coated in a low Glycaemic Index (GI) blend of Mexican agave cactus nectar, apple puree and apple juice with added freeze-dried raspberries. Raspberry Crockles achieve green traffic lights for fat, saturates and salt and an amber light for sugars (all from fruit sugars).

Muddy Cook, an online website dedicated to selling customised muesli blends (http://www.muddycook.co.uk) began testing and selling innovative blends at local Farmers Markets. After feedback, Claire Lettice, Muddy Cook’s founder began to make products aimed at children. Raspberry Crockles were an instant hit. A runaway success with young children and older teenagers, samples put on the stall were quickly devoured. According to Claire “Parents are desperately trying to find products that tick all their own nutritional boxes – whole grains, no salt, high fibre, high protein, no E numbers and made with complex fruit sugars as well as appealing to their children’s taste-buds. Crockles tick all these boxes.”

Raspberry Crockles are made from organically grown whole grains - puffed rice, puffed spelt and popped quinoa. Gentle puffing and popping of the grains helps retain all their nutritional goodness and fibre content. Each small batch of puffs is lightly coated in a blend of apple puree, apple juice (all from English apples) and agave nectar, then gently toasted. Toasting enhances the taste of the grains making them nuttier and caramelised and helps them retain their texture when immersed in milk. When cool the coated grains are mixed with natural freeze-dried raspberry pieces.

Each grain has been picked for its high nutritional value – All three are high in protein with quinoa being one of the most protein rich grains available. All three whole grains are complex carbohydrates containing starch and fibre, making them nutritionally efficient due to their slow release of energy. Raspberry Crockles provide good levels of B vitamins (B-thiamine, B2-niacin, B3-riboflavin, Vitamin B6-pyridoxine, B9-folic acid), as well as vitamins A, C and E, and the minerals iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper and manganese. Raspberry Crockles are naturally high in dietary fibre and contain no additives, preservatives or E numbers.

Raspberry Crockles achieve green traffic lights for fat, saturates and salt and an amber light for sugar content. The sugar level although appearing high is due to the fruit content of the Crockles (raspberries, apples and the Mexican blue agave cactus). As Claire also points out, agave nectar, a honey-like syrup, has a very low Glycaemic Index (GI) value and according to nutrition experts is a much healthier alternative to sugar. Foods with a low-GI burn energy more slowly and keep the blood sugar levels more balanced. Sampling from the market stalls has shown that children love the taste of Raspberry Crockles and parents can be confident that their little ones won’t be heaping on tonnes of refined table sugar to make them taste better as agave nectar tastes a lot sweeter than sugar. Raspberry Crockles are guaranteed to keep kids going and on an even keel until lunch-time.

Raspberry Crockles are being sold in two sizes - 180g and 300g bags with a recommended retail price of £2.45 and £3.60.

The nutritional values per 100g are:

Energy 372kcal, Carbohydrate 84.8g, Protein 8.9g, Fat 2.2g, Dietary fibre 5.7g

Each 30g serving offers:

112 kcal, 0.7g fat, 0.2g saturates, 3.8g sugars and a trace of salt

Raspberry Crockles are being launched at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair (7-9 September), in Olympia, London.

Unlike cane or beet sugar or other artificial sweeteners, agave nectar contains naturally high levels of fruit sugar (fructose). Fructose is a slow-release carbohydrate which is absorbed much slower into the body and does not need a lot of insulin - the chemical that triggers our sugary 'highs and 'lows' - to break it down. Agave nectar is a third sweeter than ordinary table sugar.

About GI:

The GI index rates foods on a scale of one to 100 according to how quickly they break down from carbohydrate to sugar in the bloodstream. Whilst regular table sugar has a GI value of 68 and honey a GI of 55, the GI value of agave nectar is between 11 and 19.

Claire and Ian live with their two teenage children in Putney, South West London. Both are passionate about good food. Before launching Muddy Cook, Claire and Ian spent 20 years working in marketing communication agencies in London.