Tame oats

Rolled (pressed) oats are a wonderful addition to my fruit yogurt. They add texture and makes it feel like I have actually eaten a meal. The food stays longer in my stomach, and the oats contain fiber and slow carbs that are not broken down until the great intestine, if at all.

Ironically, the fact that oats are not as much “pure energy” as wheat, rice and maize is probably a reason why it has remained marginal, grown mostly in areas where wheat yields are low or the growing season a tad on the short side. Oats contain more fat than wheat and rice (but less than maize), but due to the structure of the fibers, the fat is not quickly absorbed into the bloodstream.

This natural functional food also reduces “bad cholesterol” (actually low-density lipoproteins, which are – as the name implies – proteins rather than the cholesterol itself, but LDL supposedly has a tendency to drop cholesterol at the artery walls). Finally, it regulates blood sugar. Which makes me think, considering that my ancestors have lived in oats- and grazing land for probably a few thousand years, that my parents’ diabetes may have been more than anything a case of oats deficiency. Now that we could buy fine wheat flour, the oats faded into the background. Nobody considered that our ancestors had been under intense selection pressure to adapt to that particular grain.

I am not planning to make the same mistake. Milk products and oats with a little fruit is smack in the middle of my ancestral diet. Let’s see how the body reacts to THAT.

One thought on “Tame oats

  1. Oatmeal is a wonderful food. There is instant oatmeal that isn’t as good for you because it is so processed, then there are quick oats, then there are steel-cut oats. We have steel-cut oats. Great breads can be made with wheat flower and “whole oats”, or steel-cut oats. Jeff’s favorite cookies are oatmeal-raisin cookies. (They’re also very easy to make, if you would like the recipe we use, and you can add whatever dried fruit you like.) There are oatmeal bars that are made similarly to brownies/cakes, and if you take care of them they have an excellent shelf life. If they do get a bit hard after hanging around for a while, you simply crumble them up and add milk and you have an excellent cold cereal-ish meal. Of course, simply cooked into a hot cereal dish with your choice of fruit is my favorite way to have them. Your oatmeal may vary!

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