Rolled Oats

sky · Post by **sky** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:13 pm

Rolled Oats are one of the greatest foods ever. They are cheap, store well and are belly filling.
I have a 25lb sack of rolled oats in the basement, and about 5lbs left in a storage pail.
I like my rolled oats as follows:
In a cup, put 3 Tbs dried milk, 2 Tbs roasted salted sunflower seeds and 3 Tbs raisins. Add water, stir until milk is liquid. Add 3 Tbs rolled oats, mixing them in the liquid. Thats it, no cooking.
Eat with a spoon, and be in a meditative mindset while you chew.
I eat this every morning.
How much rolled oats do you have stored?
What is your favorite way to eat them?

Frugal Vegan Mom · Post by **Frugal Vegan Mom** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:41 pm

I love oatmeal, I'm eating mine right now. I add, depending on the day:
-chopped apple (before microwaving so it gets soft with the oats)

-banana

-nuts or nut butter

-cinnamon

-honey/agave/maple syrup

-dried fruit
If I crave something sweet later in the day I'll make a "oatmeal cookie" bowl and add chocolate chips, coconut, or other sweet things. Yummy, but healthier and cheaper than buying a box of cookies.

Freedom_2018 · Post by **Freedom_2018** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:17 pm

Pls make sure that this is not jacking up your blood sugar.
My ex-diabetic friend ate oatmeal for 16 yrs for breakfast and just giving up this one item helped her stabilize her blood sugar to a large extent.

C40 · Post by **C40** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 11:41 pm

Freedom - Oatmeal does not jack up your blood sugar. Was your friend eating junk like this?

(This stuff will screw up your blood sugar.)

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:16 am

Unsweetened rolled oats, the kind that can be cooked By adding boiling water, have a glycemic index of 92. For reference, sucrose has a GI of 95. Pasta is in the 60s.
Of course, if you get the kind that takes forever to cook, you can get it down to the 77.
So yeah, it will affect you blood sugar, but it has other health benefits... Do high glycemic foods CAUSE diabetes, or merely affect existing diabetics?

C40 · Post by **C40** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:47 am

Wow I thought it was lower....
... after checking a number of different website lists, it seems like it depends on who you're asking. I saw a range from the 40s to the 90s.
I'd guess the mean was about 60 of the ten or so websites I checked.
How much oatmeal needs to be cooked is very personal. I eat the kind that 'takes forever to cook', but I have it ready in a couple minutes (including slicing up strawberries for it)

Maus · Post by **Maus** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:55 am

@dragoncar

That seems to be part of an interesting debate taking place at one my favorite food blogs. The second thesis of Gary Taube's GCBC, that carbs lead to an insulin response that triggers fat storage and thus obesity is coming under criticism. See http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 ... .html#more
For non-diabetics, carbs may not be as much of a problem as GCBC postulated. But for those (like myself) whose metabolic system is broken, VLC does seem to be the way to go.
Anecdotally, my BS has been under much better control since giving up all glutinous grains. I miss the morning bowl of oatmeal even more than the evening bowl of pasta with olive oil and red pepper flakes. Recently, I tried to add back some occasional white rice; but my weight loss plateaued. Now, I limit rice to a once-a-week cheat-treat.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 12:55 am

Yeah I only looked at one website... More important than websites is probably what your body tells you. Do you get a high followed by a crash after eating oatmeal? Do you get hungry again quickly thereafter? If not, likely no problem.

jakio · Post by **jakio** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 11:42 am

If eating oatmeal makes you crash, adding even a little bit of fat will go far to prevent this. I use Peanut butter.

teewonk · Post by **teewonk** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:45 pm

Where does one get a 25lb sack of oats? The best I can do cost-wise is the generic canisters at the grocery store.

sky · Post by **sky** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:29 pm

I live not far from a whole foods wholesaler, Country Life Natural Foods, so I just go there for bulk purchases. Sometimes Wal-Mart is cheaper but the quality of the food is usually much better at CLNF.
Just for the record, I eat the regular rolled oats, not the quick cooking kind. I eat them raw, German muesli style, not cooked.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 10:33 pm

I'd be careful about eating raw oats -- especially in the volume you are describing. Uncooked oats contain phytates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid), which are considered antinutrients because they prevent absorption of certain minerals. There is disagreement about how harmful this is, and balancing good effects, but if you haven't already, I'd do some research on the subject. At the very least you may want to supplement certain minerals.
Edit: I'm actually unsure how raw the oats you buy are. They may already be cooked to a degree by the rolling process?

Freedom_2018 · Post by **Freedom_2018** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:34 am

@C40:
Nope. She was eating the rolled oats and steel cut oats that one gets at any health food store. It took a while to cook too.
Gary Taube's book is great research and is in line with my personal experience with eating different food types and the impact on blood sugar and weight gain. If you want to get fat, secreting lots of insulin into the blood stream is a great way to go - most processed and even whole grains will do that for you.
I do however now believe that no one type of food is all good or all bad, one has to consume with moderation, variety and in line with physical activity and any quirks that are peculiar to one's body (i.e. allergy to certain foods/tendency to do well or not so well on certain foods - the body will tell you if you listen). This is an overall lifestyle issue and can't be solved by food alone.
My current lifestyle includes, daily activity in the form of walks, playing physical games, lifting weights, cycling and generally being non-sedentary (except when in office..though I do try to move/walk about as much as possible). Food consists of 85% green vegetables of a wide variety (thanks to Indian spices, vegetables come out really tasty), rest some dairy, meat, fruits and nuts.
Also I think folks should think about not just the macro nutrients (fat, carbs, protein) but also micro nutrients (zinc, potassium, iron etc) and the amount of live enzymes and vitamins etc also in their food. These are critical to the absorption and proper metabolism of the macro nutrients. Often times people will get too carried away with the carb versus fat debate and forget all about the micro nutrients and the other lifestyle factors (exercise, stress, positive mindset etc)

George the other one · Sun Aug 14, 2011 5:58 am

Funny enough, I just figured out a couple of days ago that I get roughly 2200 calories from oatmeal during a usual day.
I eat oatmeal for breakfast, second-breakfast, and lunch every day and I fill each bowl with roughly 2.5 cups of dried oats. Also, half a cup of oatmeal is considered one serving and has 150 calories. So, 150*15=2250.
Typically I eat it in one of the following ways:

Dry.

Mixed with cold water.

Mixed with hot water.

Mixed with hot water and topped with raspberries.

Mixed with hot water and topped with walnuts.

Mixed with hot steeped tea (a variety of flavors).

Mixed with hot water and a spoonful of jam.

Mixed with hot water and topped with cinnamon.
Honestly, I am really quite happy with the "Mixed with hot steeped tea" idea. It just sort of popped into my head one day so I tried it out with a lemon-flavored tea and it was great.
Oatmeal is definitely my favorite food.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:31 am

George, your suggestion about tea reminds me of the time I tried to mix mine with coffee. I figured both were good on their own, so why not? Big mistake.

george · Post by **george** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 9:45 am

I have about 4 1 kilo bags of plain rolled oats, enough for a month. I use a couple of tablespoons to thicken spaghetti bolognaise. Also sometimes make oatcakes with buttermilk.
I keep a batch of cold semolina in the fridge, heat it for breakfast for someone who can't handle fibre and I eat it cold as a pudding, or put it in a smoothie with banana, I think it's nicer than ice cream if you make it milky enough.
For breakfast we add cinnamon, brown sugar, teaspoon of butter and sometimes banana. Sometimes defrosted boysenberries
Once a week we'll boil a couple of eggs for variation but I can't go without oatmeal for more than a day, I get too hungry later in the day.
And after breakfast we always have a nice fresh apple.
I agree moderation is good, I get my blood tested regularly at the doctor to make sure my good/bad cholestoral ratio is healthy for piece of mind.
I make my porridge with milk, sometimes trim, sometimes full cream and about once every 6 months we have cream.

m741 · Post by **m741** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 8:36 pm

Gotta agree with this. Oats are cheap, healthy, filling, convenient, flexible, have no distinctive taste, etc. One of the best foods.
I eat them at least once a day. I mix oats, protein powder (chocolate), wheat germ, cinnamon, and stevia powder. For a while I was also adding psyllium.
The best thing is that you can add a ton of different things without any problems: apples, any berries, jelly, syrup, sugar, cinnamon, various health supplements, etc.
I waslooking into getting a 50 pound bag online and may give it a shot later this year.

aquadump · Post by **aquadump** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 10:24 pm

Spiced with hot sauce, rolled oats with black beans and some random vegetables works into one of my batch lunches, for the week.
Like Georges, I experimented with oats and found I like them salty and spicey just as much as sweet.
I like the tea idea, maybe I'll try that in the future.

BeyondtheWrap · Post by **BeyondtheWrap** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:35 am

So what's the difference between oatmeal, rolled oats, and steel-cut oats? If it's not that important, I'll just imagine that everyone here is saying "oatmeal".

m741 · Post by **m741** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 1:38 am

There are different types of oats:
'Quick oats'

'Original/old-fashioned oats'

'Steel cut oats'
These are ordered in terms of processing, with most processed at the top. Quick oats and original oats are both rolled, with quick oats being quite thin and original oats a bit thicker. Steel cut oats have been less processed and apparently have a nuttier flavor, but they're more difficult to cook.
'Oatmeal' could refer to any of them, but I think people who eat steel-cut oats usually say so because they're more rare.
Personally I like old-fashion oats as they have some texture and I've found them cheaper than steel-cut oats.