Inspired by all the blog posts I’ve seen promoting unusual diets, nootropic drugs, unusual sleep cycles, and so on, I’ve decided to make my own post suggesting some radical lifestyle choice.
My suggestion here is, as the title says: you should probably eat oatmeal sometimes. Yes, I know, oats are <2% of global grain production, so this is a pretty crazy-sounding idea, but bear with me. Eating oatmeal sometimes will literally change your life.*
*slightly
oatmeal vs rice
White rice is one of the most popular foods in the world.
Compared to white rice:
oats have ~2x the protein and much more fiber
their amino acid composition is somewhat more balanced
their arsenic levels are generally lower
oatmeal is slightly more expensive, but still cheap
oatmeal is generally faster to cook
about whole-wheat flour
Whole-grain wheat flour goes rancid much faster than white flour.
Wikipedia, quoting a 2004 book, says:
The germ is rich in polyunsaturated fats (which have a tendency to oxidize and become rancid on storage) and so germ removal improves the storage qualities of flour.
(The “germ” is the part of the seed that actually grows into a new plant. As you’d expect, it’s the part with the most protein and vitamins.)
Hmm. If that’s the problem, why do (unground) wheat berries last for 10+ years, longer than white flour? Does the bran protect stuff from oxygen? I don’t think so, it’s not metal foil, it has some gas permeability.
Maybe there’s a correction of Wikipedia from some reliable source, like Wikipedia. Here’s a post from a food testing company that says:
The lipolytic enzyme lipase reacts with triglycerides to form free fatty acids in a degradation process known as hydrolytic rancidity; lipase enzymes cleave fatty acids from triglycerides.
...
Oats also contain a powerful lipoxygenase that adds oxygen to the double bonds of unsaturated fat to form peroxides, as discussed above. The other enzyme present, peroxidase, reduces peroxides producing mono-, di-, and tri-hydroxy acids, which are extremely bitter. These compounds cause the bitter flavor of rancid wheat germ.
...
In most biological systems, peroxidase requires much more heat to destroy than lipases, lipoxygenases or any of the other enzymes that may be present.
Ah yes, enzymes. When wheat berries are ground to flour, the enzymes start doing things and the flour goes rancid, but if you remove stuff to make white flour, you remove most of the enzymes.
As for oatmeal, rolled oats have such enzymes activated, so they must be treated with steam. Oats have the germ in the bottom, and can be cut up more easily than wheat without triggering enzymes too much, but steamed rolled oats still last longer than unsteamed steel-cut oats. It’s similar to how cutting onions releases alliinase but if you microwave the onion first it deactivates most of that.
Also, I think the rancidity-relevant enzymes in oatmeal might have lower thermal stability than the ones in wheat. But it’s still possible to steam-treat whole wheat so that whole wheat flour lasts longer. I think people have relatively recently found that you want to use superheated steam for that. Maybe whole wheat flour treated with superheated steam will be a thing in the future.
oatmeal is versatile
Oatmeal works with a variety of different flavors, and other ingredients can often simply be added to it before or after cooking.
There are several options for the liquid used, including:
water
milk
tea
coconut milk
There are also many reasonable options for additional flavors, including:
fruit paste
fruit syrup
frozen fruit pulp
chocolate
brown sugar
maple syrup
Flavor combinations I’ve used for oatmeal include:
tea + blackcurrant concentrate + brown sugar
passionfruit pulp + brown sugar
guava paste
milk + chocolate
Oatmeal also has several options for textures:
whole groats
steel-cut oats
rolled oats
ground oats
oatmeal pancakes
cookies
pasta???
why isn’t oatmeal more popular?
Most people’s experience with oatmeal has been from one of:
packets of instant oatmeal that have low-quality cheap flavoring and might have gone stale
quick-cooking rolled oats without any flavoring
something that has to be cooked for a long time in a pot
These days, you can get “quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal”. That’s a relatively recent development, using the cutting-edge technology of, uh, cutting the oatmeal into smaller pieces. “Cutting edge”, get it?
Also, thanks to advancements in microwave technology, cooking steel-cut oatmeal in a microwave has become more practical, but most people don’t know how to do it.
how to microwave oatmeal
Oatmeal in a microwave needs to be cooked close to the point where it boils over. So, you want an “inverter microwave”, one that can vary current instead of pulsing the magnetron every few seconds. Because of semiconductor progress, those are now common.
You also want an electronic scale. Measuring cups are an inferior approach to cooking.
Now then, put a bowl on your scale and add:
50g or 60g of quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal
3x that mass of liquid
your flavorings of choice
some salt
To cook it:
Put your bowl in your microwave and cover it with a plate.
Microwave it for 60s for 50g or 70s for 60g.
Then, microwave it at 30% power for 6.5 minutes, and let it sit for a few minutes. The required cooking time depends on oatmeal type; check the package.
If you have problems fully cooking the oatmeal without it boiling over, cook it for 4-5 minutes at 30% then longer at 20%. Some microwaves can queue this.
If you add hot liquid (such as hot tea) instead of cold liquid, then the initial full-power microwaving should be shorter or skipped. Soaking oatmeal for a while before cooking also reduces cooking time.
If you do things right, you can fix a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal and not need to wash anything besides a bowl and a spoon, which is the theoretical minimum amount of dishwashing.
Not wishing to be rude but this feels like it’s missing a section on the benefits of eating oatmeal sometimes.
There’s a favourable comparison to the protein/fibre/arsenic content of white rice, but I don’t eat a lot of white rice so I am left unclear on the motivation for substituting something I do eat with oatmeal.
Yes, on one level that’s part of the joke. But also, following the above instructions, it can be a low-cost complete meal with nonperishable ingredients that can be fixed in <5 minutes of work and <10 minutes of waiting.
Ah, perils of text-only communication and my own mild deficiency in social senses; didn’t catch that it was a joke.
Has nonetheless got me thinking about whether some toasted oats would be a good addition to any of the recipes I already like. Lil bit of extra bulk and texture, some browned nutty notes—there’s not nothing to that.
there is this standard legend (which even makes it to many oatmeal labels) that the presence of soluble fiber in the oatmeal is particularly beneficial for vascular health
that’s certainly quite tempting, if true
Seems like a bad joke, and accordingly I have decreased trust that bhauth posts won’t waste the reader’s time in the future.
I didn’t catch on at all that this was humor, and as a result made a point to pick up oatmeal next time I was at the grocery. I do actually like oatmeal, I just hadn’t thought about it in a while. It has since made for some pretty good breakfasts.
This whole sequence of events is either deeply mundane or extremely funny, I genuinely can’t tell. If it’s funny it’s definitely at my expense.
Good news: the post is both satire and serious, at the same time but on different levels.
I’m the current owner of the Oatmeal subreddit; that’s how you can be sure I’m a Real Expert.
I am glad to see oat foods taking new forms and gaining popularity with new audiences. I welcome all enthusiasts sharing what they have learned.
But you have to acknowledge the existing traditions and their expertise. It would be a tragedy, if, instead of seeds of civilization, you were spreading some meaningless imitations that have no roots. Your post has many layers of sophistication, but I believe you have omitted the true kernel of the matter.
I don’t know what guava tastes like, but I strongly suspect it does not belong in an authentic oatmeal porridge. The canonical additions are apple or apple jam with cinnamon, or blueberry. It is ok to experiment (e.g. bananas and coconut are great with blueberries), but some things just don’t belong there. Cherries (too astringent) and cloudberries come to mind. But I will not judge your condiments until I have tried them out.
As other commenters have noted, it is not absolutely necessary to sweat the cooking. In Spartan conditions rolled oats can be eaten straight with some fluid, though you need to be aware it is going to swell in the stomach. A traditional way to cook unrolled oats is to put them overnight in oven. With rolled and steamed oats I use microwave on full power until the porridge almost boils over, about 3 minutes. It’s not as good as long simmered porridge (the gel is thinner and not as creamy), but it’s fast and good enough. If I get rich I will definitely get an inverter microwave, I did not know they existed.
Whole grain oat is said to moderate blood sugar spikes in comparison to other cereals. That suggests it contains higher amounts of anti-feedants or mildly poisonous substances. This is nothing to be alarmed about, it’s a very common theme with “healthy” plant foods. It could be the fiber that slows the digestion, too.
Some people claim to have a problem with the slimy consistency of the porridge or gruel. I have met people who said they hated it since they were small children. I don’t believe anyone really is so impaired: they were probably just finding more rationalizations for some anti-breakfast meme diet.
In Finland we have a style of flat 100% oat bread that is very succulent and so slick and chunky it won’t stick to teeth nearly as much as other breads. I believe it is some kind of baked aerated porridge.
I respect your oatmeal respect and expertise but I think parts of your post are close-minded about certain things. “True roots” is nothing—if you’re thinking really old tradition, why is a different new world fruit (blueberries) in there at all? Even if you’re not restricting yourself to that, why should coconut in oatmeal be fine but not guava? That makes me think it’s just about what tastes good and not really about tradition.
(I haven’t tried guava in oatmeal either, but guavas are great, a really unique flavor, I recommend trying it if you ever get the chance!)
I think it’s odd and overgeneralizing to assert that people don’t like oatmeal because of rationalizations about their diet. In my experience, people often innately dislike widely-popular sensations or experiences for no particular reason—sensory sensitivities or just unusual preferences or etc.
On that front I also dislike the texture of normally-cooked oatmeal—I think I never especially liked it but then I did long trail crews as a teenager where oatmeal was the only breakfast for weeks straight, and I really haven’t wanted to eat it since—but overnight oats (oats mixed with liquid and sat in the fridge overnight, not cooked—you could warm it up til it’s hot but not to the boiling point) or those packets of instant oats mixed with boiling water (but not otherwise cooked/microwaved after that) both have a soft but much-less-glorpy consistency, so I’ll happily eat them for breakfast sometimes. Recommend them to anyone looking for an oatmeal experience but wishing the texture were a little different.
The problem for me with porridge has always been too much water, not enough oats—I am hungry well before lunch despite feeling full at breakfast. Even more so when out in the hills, tramping/climbing. Muesli or soaked oats dont have that problem.
I recently discovered that I like peas porridge. You can apparently just put the split peas in water in an insta-pot and if you cook them enough they disintegrate. Unlike beans or potatoes, you don’t have to mash them to get a homogeneous food. The resulting soup firms up nicely when refrigerated, and you can sweeten or spice the “pudding” depending on your preference.
Winco carries dry split green peas for $0.86/lb. Walmart offers price parity to that in 8lb bags. The commodity index price is $0.15/lb, so I think something is up with the supply chain and recursive markups because that’s almost a 600% markup (contrast the allegedly typical 1-2% grocery store markup). In any case, dry peas are 20% protein, so the protein powder equivalent would be $4.30/lb. (I have yet to see protein powder at anything close to this price.)
Oats are 13% protein but slightly cheaper than peas, so they have a similar protein to dollar value ratio. They have a different amino acid profile, so you can mix or alternate between the two to get complete protein.
However, both oats and peas contain significant amounts of phytic acid which can prevent the absorption of various minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium) during the same meal. The trick here might be to cook no higher than 90°C (the lowest setting of the insta-pot should suffice) to avoid denaturing phytase enzymes prematurely while giving them time to work. Rye is relatively high in phytase, oats relatively low, so adding a handful of rye might be ideal (or wheat berries).
Alternatively, you could obtain phytase from a feed store (typically added to chicken and swine feeds). Phytases intended for animal feeds tend to be thermostable up to 120°C so you would not have to be as careful with the cooking temperature.
Phytic acid is certainly a thing, but it’s not quite that simple, see eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8746346/. Also, uncooked fruits have phytase. And also, it’s not an issue unless you eat mostly something high in it for most meals.
Soaking seeds overnight seems to be a good way to reduce phytic acid.
As a frequent oatmeal-eater, I have a few miscellaneous comments:
You mentioned adding fruit paste, fruit syrup, and fruit pulp to oatmeal, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention what I consider the best option: whole fruit. I usually use blueberries but sometimes I mix it up with blackberries or sliced bananas.
I buy one-minute oats. You don’t actually need them to cook them for a minute, you can just pour boiling water onto them and they’ll soften up by the time they’re cool enough to eat.
I wouldn’t eat oats for the protein, they have more than rice but still not very much. I mix 80g (1 cup) of oatmeal with 25g of soy protein powder, which brings the protein up from 10g to 30g.
I don’t get the appeal of overnight oats. I have to microwave it anyway to get it to a reasonable temperature, and it tends to stick to the jar which greatly increases cleanup time. (I think the stickiness comes more from the protein powder than the oats.)
I eat quick oats by just dumping cold milk on them.
Related: millet seems nutritionally superior to rice and is cooked the same way and had similar texture. Rice and lentils are very popular, but millet and lentils are also widely eaten in some areas and appears much better. Chatgpt suggests that millet, lentils, quinoa, peas, and carrots would be a nutritional powerhouse, covering each other’s weaknesses. Might be some tricky bits with different cook times.
We soak whole rolled oats overnight in kefir and eat with nuts, seed and fruit for breakfast. It’s my wife’s favourite meal and I miss it if travelling. I do wonder about the effect of the acidic kefir on the oats. I wouldnt expect it reduce phytic acid, but I would expect breakdown of fructans and other carbohydrates into more digestable forms. That said, I really dont care much unless it’s killing me. It is just a great way to start the day and gets me through to lunch without getting hungry. The slight fag is making kefir every 4th night—getting the kefir grains to scale production for more than that is problematic.
Also worth trying: Replace the water/milk with coffee. I first tried this while camping (to avoid having to boil additional water), and I found it surprisingly good.
Chutney on oatmeal is actually really delicious. If you need a recommendation, I will put forward the chutney of the recipe of Mrs H.S.Ball.
Sadly I haven’t come across chutney without added sugar. I feel like it should be possible. I’ve made some attempts, they were just okay, I’ve not been drawn back to it.
One of the New Zealand foods that I think are actually pretty special is Harroway’s Oats. They taste significantly better than normal oats, ie, they have a taste, and it’s good! It’s described as nutty. They cost twice as much but that’s still extremely cheap per joule.
we serve oatmeal every breakfast where i live
love oatmeal
My diet is heavily, heavily oatmeal (out of laziness). Like on most days I just eat oatmeal + peanut butter + walnuts microwaved in water until I get home (and I do ~45 minutes of HIIT or strength training every morning so it’s not like I have a very low BMR). Maybe I should track my exact diet and bloodwork over time and report it here.
Those are my only experiences with oats, but I like both of those experiences. I love instant oatmeal, and I love quick oats boiled on the stove, though of course in the latter case I have to supply my own flavouring. Even just sugar is enough to make it great. But adding raisins takes it to another level; especially adding them while the oats are still boiling so that they rehydrate a little. Dried cranberries are also great. Sometimes I like to add some apple juice to the pot while the oats are boiling. This narrow range of possibilities is already plenty of variety for my narrow palate; and if I’m already making oatmeal, those additions are basically zero added effort. If I didn’t have crippling executive dysfunction, I’d eat quick oats much more often than I actually do. (Unfortunately, the activation energy required to make anything on the stove is more than I usually reach; and I find the microwave to be a poor substitute, not to mention that it doesn’t even solve the part that I find aversive, which is measuring out the oats and water. Also, raisins and dried cranberries are expensive.)
The other day I bought some quick oats and raisins and dried cranberries, and have been serving myself some very delicious bowls of oatmeal. Thanks, bhauth, for reminding me this exists.
Recipe Recommendation: I freeze these in small containers. When done right, it’s breakfast for an entire month. Just take one out of the freezer and put in the fridge every morning. That way you’ll always have an unfrozen one.
Rolled oats (bulk) Some come with fruit chunks
Clusters of crunchy whatever
Blue Berries
Raspberries
Banana
Coca powder (a little)
Peanut Butter (a lot)
Apple juice (maybe 1inch max)
cover with soy milk (Oestrogen thing isn’t true. It’s plant oestrogen. Cows milk has animal oestrogen)
Sprinkle cinnamon
Freeze Highly recommended. Takes a while to prep 30 of them. But makes life pretty damn good.
Interesting how all the toppings you mentioned are sweet. I had a revelation the other day. It’s possible to have savoury oats, it’s just a cultural norm that we eat oats as sweet. This way you can substitute rice completely 1:1. Just cook the oats, rolled or steel cut, and then add salt. Super easy.
Sure, some people add stuff like cheese/tomatoes/ham to their oatmeal. Personally I think they go better with rice, but de gustibus non disputandum est.
How far are these people willing to take this, and will they stop before reinventing black pudding.
I used to eat overnight oats everyday (rolled oats + milk in the fridge, left overnight) but now I can’t stand the texture. Hot oatmeal is too mushy for my liking. I haven’t found a recipe online that doesn’t involve a) oats + heated water or b) oats + liquid overnight or c) lots of sugar (aka granola). Do you have any oatmeal recipe/suggestions?
This post is satire but I am still wondering if the comments are genuine, AI generated or playing along with OP
My problem with oatmeal is that I seem to very quickly go back to being hungry after eating it (I guess I could just go with MORE
DAKKAOATMEAL but I don’t want to consume an enormous amount). I haven’t actually measured this but my intuitive sense is that once I’ve had a normal or even large-ish portion of oatmeal, I’ll be hungry in about two hours again.I had the same problem, then I started mixing cottage cheese in the oatmeal and that fixed it.
Tried it, felt like it worked! However I remembered that I don’t like the taste of cottage cheese that much. 😅
Totally coincidentally a friend posted that a nutritionist had told him that this may be caused by some people’s digestive systems not processing fiber properly if they don’t get protein at the same time. Cottage cheese has protein… the nutritionist’s advise had been to cook the oats with milk or to add an egg. Hmm.