Product review: Ola! Granola

Working mother Dina Houser has been baking batches of whole-grain granola for years using a fine-tuned version of her mother’s recipe. Family, friends, and clients alike loved the naturally sweetened crunchy blends she made, and four years ago, she finally decided to share her granola with food lovers everywhere. On Earth Day in 2009, Dina launched Ola! Foods and began baking, packaging and selling granola right in her own kitchen. Her business grew and soon expanded into include an extended family of bakers in state-of-the-art Connecticut kitchens. Today, Ola! is a thriving company with products available online and in retail locations across the country.

1-oz. packets of Vanilla Almond and No Nut Vanilla

Not only is Ola! Granola made with a short list of simple, pronounceable ingredients (whole grain oats, pure maple syrup, whole wheat flour, canola oil, pure vanilla extract, cinnamon and sea salt in their basic vanilla), it’s got a nutrition label that would make other brands of store-bought granola cower in shame. Here are the numbers for a serving of No Nut Vanilla:

When you consider the fact that many leading healthy granola brands contain 110-140 calories, 3-7 g of fat, 4-7 g of sugar and 4 grams or less of protein for a smaller 1/4 cup serving, the winning choice is clear. You can enjoy more Ola! Granola for the same amount of calories and nutrients and far less guilt.

In addition to being incredibly tasty, granola is truly a versatile food. You can enjoy it in traditional ways as a yogurt topping or by the handful, but the Ola! website lists over 80 incredible breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert recipes you can make using their products. Scoop some granola into your favorite pancake or waffle batter, mix it into chicken salad or stuff pork chops with it for unbeatable crunch and flavor.

When Ola! reached out to Healthy Way to Cook about sampling their products, we were more than thrilled to try out their 100% natural vegan Vanilla Almond, No Nut Vanilla and Cranberry Orange Pecan blends. We received two 1-ounce single-serving packets of the vanilla varieties to try and a 9-ounce bag of each flavor to give away to one lucky HWTC reader. This giveaway closes at 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday, February 12, so enter now for your chance to win all three bags!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR ENTERING AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER!

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Disclosure: Ola! Foods sent sample products to Healthy Way to Cook to try with no obligation to review them. No further compensation was provided for this post.  All opinions belong to the author.