• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 3 cups rolled oats (do NOT use instant oats)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a non-stick skillet over medium heat, toast the coconut until it is fragrant and lightly browned. Keep on eye on this and stir frequently because it will quickly go from brown to burnt. Put the coconut in a large mixing bowl and toast the oats until warmed. Combine the coconut, oats, brown sugar, honey, oil, cinnamon and salt and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake the granola until your house smells like a comforting bed and breakfast, about 20-25 minutes. Allow granola to cool, then break apart into chunks and store in an air tight container. Add additional ingredients if desired, such as toasted nuts or seeds or dried fruits, after the baking process to prevent burning.

Recently Kellogg’s Special K has been heavily marketing itself as a diet food. You can take the Special K Challenge as featured in Shape magazine, which consists of a daily breakfast of Special K, skim milk and some fruit, followed by a cereal bar for lunch, fruits, vegetables and snack bites for, well, snacks and then whatever you’d normally eat for dinner before you switched to a diet based on cereal. Special K has only 110 calories per bowl! This means I can eat an entire box of cereal a day and still lose weight, right? Well, I have a few problems with this, so I’ll categorically rant about it and then offer a more reasonable alternative.

The Most Important Meal of the Day…