How to Start Living Consciously!

Dear Friends,

When I created our company identity, I put a lot of myself into the process. Our company name, One Planet Granola, and our slogan, “Delicious Food for Conscious Living,” reflect my deeply held belief that living consciously is critical to our own happiness and the wellbeing of the world around us.

What do I mean by living consciously? Well, I try to put the idea into practice everyday at work. When I bake my granola, I think about bringing health, warmth and happiness to my customers. I’m conscious of what I am doing while I do it: I am making the best-tasting, healthiest granola possible for my customers.

Living consciously is so important to the way we lives. Every day we make choices at many levels, from simple to complex. These choices not only effect our own life, but impact the people around us, including our family, friends, co-workers, community, and, believe it or not, people on the other side of the world. Unless we live consciously in the present, those choices will be influenced by experience and memories from the past.

So for example, we can make small, conscious choices not to buy water in plastic bottles, to recycle and compost or to take five-minute showers. And we can make complex, conscious choices to live within our means, to reject consumerism and to think about the impact of our lifestyle on the world around us. It’s those bigger, complex choices that tend to get clouded by how our parents lived, for example, instead of what we know is right for us in today’s world.

Here are a few ideas I have to help you get started on your journey to a more conscious life:

1-    Evaluate your life. My advice is to make a list of the important parts of your life, such as family, work and relationships. You get the point. Once you have a list, take a look at what is working and what isn’t. For those parts of your life that aren’t working, take a look around and see what’s missing. If you can find what’s missing you can make changes!

2-    Make a commitment to yourself and be self-disciplined. Make your life what you want it to be because, damn it, you’re worth it!

3-    Try being quiet. I used to run around 16 hours a day and still feel that I hadn’t accomplished anything at the day’s end. Then I learned there was a better, more peaceful way to live. I found inner stillness, made the time to practice mediation or just ‘be’ in a quiet place a few minutes a day. Try it. No phones. No emails. Sit with nothing and just be with yourself. With practice, you’ll be able to access peace and calm any time you want!

4-    Give yourself a break. Be kind to yourself and others. Create a state of gratitude. Say thank you more often. Always see the best in others. The more you turn away from yourself towards others, the less wrapped up you’ll be in your own world and concerns. There is nothing like the feeling of love and compassion flowing in your heart. I have this feeling in my heart every time I box up our granola and send it out to be put in stores. I think of all the people who eat my granola and wish them all the love in their life!

5-    A healthy mind in a healthy body in the best recipe for being conscious. Lead by example and show your children by taking care of yourself. Move you body in whatever way works for you: walking, running, yoga, breathing—any of them will leave you feeling better both in body and mind

Enjoy exploring and learning more about yourself and your life. It is very challenging but the rewards more than outweigh the work.

I believe that people everywhere are looking for the same thing: peace, harmony and abundance for themselves and their families. No matter what our circumstances, we are all capable of being happy if we learn to live consciously.

Cheers to living consciously,

Rana

A Day in the Life at One Planet

Dear Friends;

Every day at One Planet Granola, we go about our business of baking, packaging and selling our granolas. I want to share with you how we each spend our time keeping our granola-making business running.

As many of you know, my daughter Sandra and I are the main force behind One Planet Granola. Like every mother-daughter team, we’ve had our ups and downs, our fun times and not so fun times. But through it all, we’ve kept our eye on the goal of providing the best product we can for our customers.

As the company has grown, we’ve each taken on roles that fit our individual talents.
Sandra uses her amazing communication, organizational and problem solving skills to run all of the company’s sales and marketing. She spends a lot of time on the computer and on the road, managing brokers, sales reps and distributors to get our granolas onto store shelves. Sandra never takes anything personally, which is so important for sales work. She loves traveling to check on our products and talk to buyers so she can get to know them personally.

I’m fortunate that Sandra loves her role at our company because I don’t like sales at all! I would rather be in the kitchen making the granola and that is where you are most likely to find me. We make all our granola to order.  When orders come in from our sales reps, we bake and package it up that day. We start baking in the early morning making each batch by hand.  We chop figs, ginger and mango, melt the butter and mix the honey. I love being in the kitchen while the heavenly aroma of our baking granola fills the air.

When the granola is done, we bring it to room temperature and add the dry fruit. Then we package each and every bag one at a time.  We’re still shopping for the right packaging machine to make this part of our process more efficient!

Unfortunately, my job also includes a lot of paper work. I track and update our inventory of more than 60 ingredients to be sure we have what we need to fill our orders. I buy ingredients from many different sources and the process is not always smooth sailing.  Sometime items are back ordered or out of stock and I have to find new sources. I also keep track of all our certifications and permits, including documentation of our organic ingredients and our health permits. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in the paper filing business not the food business!

There is so much to learn we grow our business! Not so long ago, we made all our granola in our little café oven, baking four half-sheets at time. We used to keep our inventory in a shed on the café’s outdoor patio.  Today, we are so blessed to be baking in a kitchen with more than 10,000 square feet of space and an oven that fits 30 full sheets of granola at a time!

Most of all we love our days at work.  We feel lucky to have a great supportive team of reps and distributors that believe in our products and work with us to make One Planet Granola a success.

Thank you for being part of our team and granola lover!

Love,

Rana

Finding a Manual for Life

Dear Friends,

     This week I celebrated my birthday. (Of course, being a woman of a certain age, I am not going to tell you how old I am.) I used to panic around my birthday. Another year had passed by and I still had so much I wanted to accomplish! But today, I no longer panic thanks to a revelation about life I had about five years ago. I experienced a complete shift in my perspective. Since then, I’ve embraced my birthday as a day to celebrate my life and my accomplishments with family and friends.

Where is My Manual for Life?

     When I was younger, I always wished I had a life manual book that would give me answers to my life dilemmas. While I was raising my kids I counted on the parenting books at the public library to give me the answers. I was always questioning my parenting skills and wondering if I really was providing my children with what they needed. I was far away from my mother, my home and culture. How was I supposed to know what normal was? Putting it plainly, I didn’t have faith in my own abilities.

     Still I forged ahead, separating from my husband and raising my three kids on my own. To support us, I started a small café in downtown Ross, CA. One day, after I’d been in business for a few years, another woman asked me if I might provide her with some help starting her own business. I was surprised and thought to myself, “What do I have to offer? I am barely holding on with my own business?” We met several times and I talked through my experiences and ups and downs at the café. My friend thanked me over and over again each time we met. I kept thinking, “Why is she thanking me? I haven’t done anything, really. I just told her what I learned.”

My "Aha!" Moment

     And then suddenly it all came clear. I had been in this woman’s shoes and I was sharing with her how I got from there to owning a thriving small business. While I was building my business, I was just trying to survive and never took the time review and enjoy my accomplishments. But looking back at that moment I could see how much I had accomplished. I also saw how much I loved serving my customers their morning coffee and talking with them.

     Soon after that ‘aha moment,’ I decided to throw a big celebration at the café. It was my seventh year in business and my guests kept asking why I wanted to celebrate my seventh anniversary. It didn’t make much sense to them, though they were happy to join in. To me, the party and its timing made all these sense in the world. I wanted to celebrate my new understanding that my life experience had real value and meaning to me and to others. That party was an acknowledgement of my own growth, the growth of my business and joy I got from sharing daily life with my customers.

Loving Everyday

     I had five more years at the café before I sold it. I loved every day I worked there, making the tall, non-fat lattes and sharing life’s ups and downs with my customers. For those last years, the business thrived and I got energized. Despite my long hours at the cafe, I was happy to do more cooking when I got home, which is how I came up with the granola that became the basis for One Planet Granola.

     Today, I’m running a consumer, packaged food company and still I have no manual for success. The only manual I have is my own experience and faith that despite detours things always work out for the best. It’s a long way from a little café to a company that makes, packages and sells granola, but I’m still making food that I hope will make my customers feel nurtured and loved. That’s a mission that wakes me up and gets me going every morning.

Love, Rana

Give Yourself a Break with Meal Planning: It works!

Mom is a super hero. Everyone in the family depends on her. She keeps the house clean, gets the laundry done, monitors home work, plans activities and family time, keeps up with the relatives, plans holidays. The list goes on and on and she keeps going and going, until one day: crash!

If you’re a mom, you know what I mean. When I was a single, working mom with three young kids I had to be creative about how to get a break so that I didn’t crash. One of my secret weapons was meal planning. I actually hired a consultant to teach me how to make meal time easier at home.

Today, I’m sharing what I learned about planning and shopping for family meals in hopes that it will help make life for all you super moms a little easier. You may say you don’t have time to sit down and do the work of meal planning, but trust me you’ll be so glad that you did. I’ve used this tool for years and it works!

Here are a few ways that meal planning will make your life easier and your family happier:

• ·      It will save you at least 3 to 4 hours a week.
• ·      It will save you money especially—not more last minute take out or restaurant meals
• ·      Everyone will know what’s for dinner, most importantly you!  
• ·      Home cooked meals are healthy for the body and the soul: they bring families together to share and relate.

How Meal Planning Works

Make the Commitment

First, set aside a time to get organized and do some preliminary work. Then decide on a day and time to write up your weekly plan. You will thank me, I promise!

Get Organized

Take an inventory of the contents of your fridge, pantry and cabinets so you know what you have when you start your planning. Who knows, you may not even need to go shopping for a few days depending on what’s there!

Put all your recipes on one place.

Make a list of family favorites and/or quick and easy meals.

Create Your Plan

Make your list of meals and then build your grocery list.

Plan three or four dinners from scratch, and one or two dinners using leftovers from previous evenings.

Give yourself a break and go out to eat or order in one night a week. When my kids were growing up, Sunday was my night. I still refuse to cook on Sundays unless I have company!

Make a weekly schedule for shopping, food preparation and cooking and stick with it. We are creatures of habit and all these tasks get easier over time.

Tips for Success

Bring your family into the process. Ask them what they’d like to eat and bring your kids with you when you shop. You can even get them involved in meal preparation a few days a week.

Plan meals that use lots of the same ingredients to make shopping easier and take advantage of seasonal vegetables.

Stick with vegetables and other foods that your family likes and introduce something new once a week. 

Simplify weekday mornings by offering only two choices for breakfast. Save the big family breakfast for the weekends and then you can get everyone helping with the cooking and cleaning.

I hope you have as much success with planning your meals as I do. Send us your recipes and experiences. We are always happy to hear from you!

Breakfast with One Planet Granola: It Really is the Most Important Meal of the Day

Dear Friends,

      The return of fall always reminds me of my family's back-to-school routine. Every year during the last two weeks of summer my three children and I organized their rooms and shopped for clothes, shoes, backpacks and school supplies. Everyone was so excited and full of anticipation!

      Now my two boys are in college and they do their own shopping. But I still worry about whether or not they are eating a good breakfast and getting enough nutrition to keep them going through the day! Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, especially for students. Studies show that kids who eat good, healthy breakfasts perform better on tests and have better grades.

       One Planet Granola is perfect for breakfast. We even have a flavor made for kids called One Planet Morning Magic with pumpkin seeds, banana chips, dried apples, honey, maple syrup, Madagascar vanilla and naturally chocolate covered sunflower seed. Serve up half a cup with milk and a glass of orange juice and your kids will be full of fuel until lunch time.

     One Planet Granola is also the perfect main ingredient in breakfast muffins. Make up a big batch using our First Love mix and the recipe below and then freeze them! First Love includes a mix of organic cranberries, almonds, pecans, coconut, sunflower seeds, with whole-grain oats, raisins, pumpkin seeds and more and is packed with protein. Take your frozen muffins out in the evening and they’ll be ready the next morning for a quick, healthy and filling start to the day.

      One Planet Granola wishes you and your family a happy, healthy and smart start to the school year.

Love,

Rana

One Planet First Love Granola Muffins

Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients

1 cup First Love One Planet Granola

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 large eggs

¼ cup honey

1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

¼ cup canola oil

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven 375 F with a rack in the middle. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking oil.

Combine the granola with half of the buttermilk and let it set for 15 minutes.

Beat together eggs, honey, remaining ½ cup buttermilk, canola oil and vanilla.

Whisk the flour and baking powder into the wet batter and fold in the granola mixture.

Fill muffin cups about ¾ full and bake about 25 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy. 

Welcome to One Planet Granola's Blog!

Dear friends,

      It’s hard to imagine that One Planet Granola is already celebrating its two-year anniversary. This business is truly a dream come true for me and I want to share with all our friends and fans how I began my journey in the food industry. It all started in 2001 when I bought a small coffee shop in Ross, CA that I called Café on the Common.  I knew nothing about running a business but I had passion for cooking and sharing my food with people. I was also a single mom with three small children so I had no choice: I had to make this new business work.

     I wanted to create a café where customers experienced the nurturing warmth of delicious home cooking the moment they walked in the door. I was a good cook but I was not a good baker. My customers were patient with me while I perfected my muffins, scones and croissants. Once a regular customer took a bite out of a scone and spit it out all over the counter: I had forgotten to add the sugar! It took a few years, but I finally hit on the right mix for all my baked goods. My blueberry and ginger scones drew customers all the way from San Francisco. Over the years, I made and sold over 900,000 scones and the café become a much beloved neighborhood and family gathering place.

     The granola we served came from a wonderful local man. Six years ago when he retired and shut down his business I thought, “Now what?!” I searched and searched but couldn’t find an organic granola to satisfy my standards. The obvious answer to my dilemma was to create my own! I created my first batch in the café one day after business hours. My plan was let my customers be my tasters and get their feedback, but I ate the whole batch before the morning. I am not kidding! I made another batch and this time I held my self back so there would be some to serve the next morning. That second batch was a huge hit with everyone and my granola quickly became a café favorite.

     When customers started asking if they could buy a pound to take home, I realized that I had hit on something that I could make into a business. And just like the café, I thought well let’s do it. So I started packaging up the granola and selling it in the café. I got excited about exploring different flavors with organic fruits and nuts and came up with eight unique, all-organic flavors. In June 2010, I asked my daughter Sandra to partner with me and we launched One Planet Organic Granola.

     My first supermarket order was Woodland Market just down the road from the café. Then I got an order for 30 cases from United Market for two of their local stores. It took me a week to finish that order because I could only bake five pounds at a time in the café oven! Now I have an oven that can bake 450 pounds at a time and One Planet Granola is available at Whole Foods. Every time I get a new order, I can’t believe that people like my granola so much.

     Just writing all this down brings up so much emotion, excitement and a great gratitude to everyone who helped us to get One Planet Granola off the ground. Thank you for being part of our life, and thank you for making us part of yours.

Love,  Rana