Bingo Granola

Gingered Apple Granola

2009-12-15T16:53:00.005-05:00

Again, we start with the Bingo Granola basics to make our Gingered Apple granola:

• made from sprouted organic oats

• sweetened minimally with VT maple syrup, VT apple cider and VT honey

• we use a little bit of VT grown and cold pressed sunflower oil- sometimes organic, but always unsprayed

• slow roasted, by us, by hand!

• all Bingo products are wheat free

• made with raw quality Vermont grown organic apples

Gingered Apple Bingo Granola
For this, we dehydrate Organic Empire Apples in our kitchen. We set the temperature to 105˚F so that the finished product is still raw quality- that means the enzymes are still active and the nutritional value is higher than fruit dried at higher temperatures.

Follow the link to the grower's site:
Dwight Miller Orchard: http://www.vtfarmorg.com/

ingredients:

Sprouted Organic Oats, Organic Whole Buckwheat Groats, Organic Walnuts, Organic Raw Quality Empire Apples (VT), Organic Pumpkin Seeds, Organic Ground Flax (added after baking), Organic Sesame Seeds, Organic Maple syrup (VT), Boiled Cider (VT, ecocert apples), Honey (VT), Sunflower Oil (VT, unsprayed or organic), Organic Candied Ginger (Organic ginger, organic sugar), Organic Fair Trade Vanilla Extract, Lemon Oil, and a pinch of Sea Salt

Black Currant Granola

2009-12-15T15:18:00.008-05:00

We start with the Bingo Granola basics to make our Black Currant granola:

• made from sprouted organic oats

• sweetened minimally with VT maple syrup, VT apple cider and VT honey

• we use a little bit of VT grown and cold pressed sunflower oil- sometimes organic, but always unsprayed

• slow roasted, by us, by hand!

• all Bingo products are wheat free

• made with Vermont grown black currants and apples
follow the links to our growers' sites:
Cherry Hill Farm: http://vermontel.net/~cherryhillfarm/VickyDays/index.html
Dwight Miller Orchard: http://www.vtfarmorg.com/

Black Currant Bingo Granola

It's granola noir! We've packed so many Vermont grown black currants into this granola- it is bold with sophisticated berry flavor. Bits of our neighbor's mutsu apples, fennel seed, nutmeg and a pinch of black pepper read like clues in a crime drama. It will turn your milk purple!

ingredients:

Sprouted Organic Oats, Black Currants (VT, no-spray) , Pecans, VT Honey, Organic Maple Syrup (VT), Boiled Cider (VT, ecocert), Honey (VT) Organic Ground Flax (ground fresh, and added after baking), Cold Pressed Sunflower Oil (VT, no spray), Organic Fennel Seed, Organic Nutmeg, Organic Black Pepper, and a pinch of Sea Salt.

Sprouted Oats!

2009-12-04T09:38:00.000-05:00

Sprouted Organic Oats are one reason Bingo Granola is unique. It's a big part of the unusually nutty flavor and texture that keeps our customers happy. It's also a means to create a "nutrient-dense whole food" (a term used by the Weston A. Price Foundation).

A seed- such as an oat groat- is meant to be eaten by bears and birds, then deposited elsewhere. Wherever that may be, a seed's enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid continue to protect it from germinating, and attempting to grow, until the conditions are just right. When rains come, those protective factors are neutralized and the seed sprouts! It's amazing really.

It's also the path to increased absorption of critical nutrients during digestion. Many people who don't do well with grain based foods experience better results with sprouted or fermented (ie: sourdough) grain based products. Just about anybody, if they are noticing, will experience an increase in their energy and health, overall.

We sprout raw groats, then roll them flat for granola each week. This makes our oats incredibly fresh. They never sit in bags in warehouses after processing. As luck would have it, we have also decreased our carbon footprint by minimizing the number of processes use that use machinery and heat.

For those who are interested in sprouted raw foods, we carry Bingo Oats. These have been sprouted, rolled, then dried at 105 degrees. That means they are a raw food product! Our customers rave about them. Some eat them raw on yogurt or in other raw food recipes, others claim they make the best porridge, muffins and cookies, ever. As they are not heat treated, their enzymes are active, and so they have a shelf life of about 30 days from processing (longer with refrigeration).

Link to the Weston Price Foundation website to read more about grains and health: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/be_kind.html

Here's another link, with lots of well written info about the benefits of sprouted grains:

http://www.creatingheaven.net/eeproducts/eesfc/about_sprouted.html#changes

Original Bingo Granola

2009-08-28T08:20:00.002-04:00

All of our granola products are

• made from sprouted organic oats

• sweetened minimally with VT maple syrup, VT apple cider and VT honey

• we use a little bit of VT grown and cold pressed sunflower oil- sometimes organic, but always unsprayed

• slow roasted, by us, by hand!

• all Bingo products are wheat free

Original Bingo Granola

Our most popular mix is a classic, and with 6 grams of sugar and 8 grams of protein per 1/3 cup serving, the glycemic ratio is excellent- better than most.

ingredients:

Sprouted Organic Oats, Organic Raisins, Organic Almonds, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Coconut Flakes, Organic Sesame Seeds, Organic Ground Flax (ground fresh, and added after baking), Organic Maple Syrup (VT), Apple Cider from Ecocert apples (VT), Honey (VT), Cold Pressed Sunflower Oil (VT), Organic Fair Trade Vanilla Extract, and a pinch of Sea Salt.

See future postings for information about our variety of flavors that we make using locally grown and raw quality fruit.

Where to Find Us

2009-08-22T08:59:00.000-04:00

We sell our granola at area food coops, at the Brattleboro Area Farmers Market, through the Grafton Village Cheese Company (at the store and through the mail order catalog as of July 2009). Sometimes we are vendors at the Greenfield Farmers Market (MA), too.

If you can't come see us, then call 802/257-0209 or email bingogranola@gmail.com and we'll be happy to send you some granola or sprouted organic porridge oats - at least until we get our website up and running. We'll describe or offerings in the next post.

But do come if you can..

We recently had visitors from Berlin, Germany staying with us. They enjoyed Brattleboro very much, then left for the wonders of NYC. After about a week they contacted us to say they felt strongly they just weren't done with Brattleboro and they hoped to come back, rather than finish their stay in NYC! We were surprised and impressed by how much our little town had to offer. We know WE love it, but when we have visitors we get to remember why.

The Brattleboro Farmer's Market alone is worth a trip from NYC or Boston and places between. Local people make it a major social event with live music and a huge sandbox at the center. The food vendors make eating at the market a memorable experience and the locally grown produce is gorgeous. The Grafton Village Cheese Company is just a few miles away, with a beautiful view of the Brattleboro Retreat Meadows (wetlands at the confluence of the

Connecticut and West Rivers), a petting farm and an award winning cheese making facility.

We make Bingo Granola in a small commercial kitchen at the Cotton Mill. The Cotton Mill is a refurbished textile mill turned business incubator, owned and operated by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). We'll post more on our facility in the future.

See you!

In the beginning

2009-07-21T08:49:00.000-04:00

In 2002, we started a family project: to make a healthy food product and to sell it at our local (Brattleboro, VT) food coop. At that time granola options seemed limited, and we thought we could improve on them. We developed a recipe that is perfectly not too sweet, with lots of toasty flavor and plenty of protein.

When we called the nearest oat grower, nothing about sending a small order of oats to us, just 3 hours down the road, made financial or logistical sense. The grower would send full tractor trailer loads to a distributor, but when we placed our order there, we’d get a bag that had traveled thousands of miles, having criss-crossed North America from grower to processor to distributor to us!

To compete in the wholesale market, our financial advisors told us we’d have to work with the logic that drives that system. We had a different impulse. We felt it was important to get to know the people growing the stuff we hoped to turn into granola. We wanted to know our product from roots to table.

Six growing seasons later, we feel our impulse was sound. We have enjoyed the process of working directly with growers. It’s given us a meaningful connection to our ingredients, and a desire to make recipes that, in turn, do them justice. All this passion for good and healthy food, reduced “food miles” and support for local growers has made our process challenging, but it gives us confidence that our granola is something special.