How Bircher Muesli was discovered?

The famous doctor Max Bircher discovered ‘Bircher Muesli’ quite by chance. He was a great walker, and one evening while walking in the Swiss mountains, he arrived at a mountain hut just as a shepherd, who lived there, was making his supper. The shepherd invited him to share his meal – a kind of porridge of coarsely milled oats in milk, sweetened with honey, which he ate while munching an apple. The shepherd said he got the recipe from his father, who had got it from his father before.

But why the apple?

He didn’t know, but he did notice that when he went without the apple, the porridge lay heavy on his stomach. How long had he been eating this food? All his life. And how old was he? ‘Seventy, I’ve never been to the doctor, and I can climb the hills as well as when I was a young man’. How many times a day did he eat this food? ‘Twice a day, morning and evening.’  

Bircher’s curiosity led him to investigate further and he discovered that the recipe was not original. In parts of Switzerland where there was plenty of fruit, nuts and grains, meals often evening meals, consisted of this mixture with milk straight from the cow.

And so began research into the nutritional values of Bircher’s ‘mix’. He realised that muesli is the perfect food:

• The oats: vitamins A, E, B1, B2, B12 and protein.
• The milk/yogurt: vitamins A, B2, C, minerals and fats.
• The apples: vitamins B1, C, potassium, pectin and carbohydrates.
• The honey: iron and carbohydrates.
• The nuts: vitamins, B1, B2, protein, potassium and phosphorus.
• The lemon: vitamin C and potassium.

In particular, the combination of milk and oats creates a protein-based combination, showing its amino-acid value as a surplus of lysine, cystine and threonine, and thus equivalent in biological value to egg protein.