The Morning Ritual

Every week day I begin my morning in pretty much the same way, feed the cat so she'll stop screeching, make my latte, watch my morning news soap opera, and eat my oatmeal. While I'll save my discussion on the struggle to make the best foam for my latte for another day, today's its all about the oatmeal.

I have found oatmeal to something that many people really like, but its never a food that really gets the attention that it should. Especially in the winter, when everyone needs a little warm morning pick-me-up, oatmeal really gets you going in the morning. I have found that many of my friends and family are closet oatmeal lovers. There's a few things that I really like about it:

1. It tastes pretty good on its own, but you can flavor it really however you'd like. Whenever I start to get sick of eating oatmeal every day I change up my "mix-ins" (I also only eat it during the week and indulge in my real breakfast love on weekends, bagels). I have used nuts like pecans and almonds and a variety of sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, brown sugar), and a wide variety of fruits (berries, bananas, apples). Or you can use any combination; the possibilities will keep you interested in oatmeal for months and month and months. Right now I'm hooked on dehydrated fruit (which plumps up when you add the milk and heat it up), but my classic is really just a bit of maple syrup.

2. It keeps you full for the whole morning. This is especially true if you put nuts and fruit in it. But even if you don't, the thick gooey meal really does "stick to the ribs" and keeps you satisfied and starts your day off right. I also think (pure speculation) that if you think about the meal in terms of how much food you're eating (by weight and perhaps calories), you'll find that you can eat way less oatmeal and stay full longer. Maybe it's because it doubles in size when you cook it. One of the reasons that I never used to like it was because it made me feel so full (when I would use the packets). Now I do the measuring myself so I get the appropriate serving size and it's just right, much like the Goldilocks tale.

3. It's super healthy. First of all, it has been shown to lower cholesterol, so I don't need to worry about that rice pudding I had last night. It also can help lower your blood sugar level (again, no worries on the rice pudding). Both the cholesterol and blood sugar lowering benefits are from the soluble fiber, beta glucan. Great stuff. I guess this super-duper glucan "slows the rate at which food leaves the stomach and delays the absorption of glucose following a meal." I wonder if you could just have a little bit of oatmeal with every meal and that would slow the digestion of the entire meal. Somehow I doubt it, but that would certainly make it my favorite food ever.
As if all of that weren't enough, the oats also have phytonutrients (I know that you wouldn't be convinced of its healthy power unless it had these "ph"abulous nutrients). One of the two main phytonutrients is ferulic acid which is an antioxidant and has been shown to inhibit the growth of some cancer compounds. Rock on oatmeal.

I personally like McCann's Quick Cook oatmeal (which is the rolled oat variety). I just add milk (and/or water) pop it in the microwave for about 2 minutes and its done. I recently tried Quaker Oats and I could taste a difference (not good or bad, just a difference), and I prefer the McCann's, but it's really just personal preference (I think I really just got used to the taste of McCann's and I like it). There is a difference as well between steel cut and rolled oats, the steel cut take much longer to cook - for the steel cut, you can boil water, add the oatmeal, turn off the heat and let it sit overnight. Then the next morning you bring it back up to a boil and cook until tender. That's easy, but then I'd need to remember to set up my breakfast the night before (but it would be great if you were already setting up the coffee as well for the morning). I think the steel cut is the more old-fashioned traditional type of oatmeal. I do believe that the it is more nutritious as well.

So don't forget about your oatmeal, you can jazz it up or leave it plain, but either way you're really starting your morning off right. So much so that you'll be able to run and jump and kick your legs up to the side just like Maria in The Sound of Music (if I ever had a commercial for oatmeal that's how it would end).