Cranberry yoghurt bowl

Name: Cranberry yoghurt bowl
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: Greek yoghurt, unsweetened 300 g; Cranberries, fresh or frozen 80 g; Brazil nuts 2 nuts (one per person); Rolled oats 40 g; Honey 1 tsp; Ground cinnamon a little

One Brazil nut per person, no more. With a nut whose selenium content you cannot know, counting is the method.

2 servings10 min

Ingredients

Method

Toast the oats in a dry pan over low heat for three to four minutes, until the colour deepens slightly and they smell nutty.
Use frozen cranberries as they are, or halve fresh ones. If the tartness is too much, warm them in a pan with the teaspoon of honey for two minutes.
Take out exactly two Brazil nuts and chop them coarsely. Do not leave the bag on the table — counting is the point of this recipe.
Spoon the yoghurt into bowls and top with the cranberries, oats and Brazil nuts.
Dust with a little cinnamon.

Cooking note

There is a reason the Brazil nuts are fixed at two. Their selenium mirrors the soil the tree grew in, and even within USDA's own data the figure runs from 280 to 1,920 µg per 100 g — a sevenfold spread. One nut could be 14 µg or 96 µg.

The adult upper limit is 400 µg a day. At the high figure, four nuts reach it. With a nut whose dose you cannot know, counting is the only reliable control.

An honest word on the cranberries too. For preventing urinary tract infections the evidence is real — a Cochrane review of 50 trials found a relative risk of 0.70. But there is no evidence for treating an infection you already have, and no effect was found in pregnant women, elderly people in institutions, or people with neurogenic bladder. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.

Unsweetened yoghurt is the condition. Cranberries are sharp enough to make you reach for sugar, and sweetened yoghurt topped with dried cranberries — usually sugar-infused — turns this bowl into dessert.

Toasting the oats is about texture: they stay crisp longer once they meet the yoghurt.

Ingredients used here

Fruits

Strong evidence

Cranberry

A Cochrane review of 50 randomised trials found a 30 % lower risk of UTI. But the effect appeared in some groups and not others.

Dairy & eggs

Moderate evidence

Greek yogurt

It has nearly three times the protein of regular yogurt not because of any special ingredient, but because the liquid was removed. Calcium goes down in the same step.

Nuts & seeds

Moderate evidence

Brazil nut

Within USDA's own data the selenium figure ranges from 280 to 1,920 µg per 100 g, a sevenfold spread. It tracks the selenium in the soil the tree grew in.

Grains & legumes