pantsfarm

I like [tag]oatmeal[/tag]. I eat it for [tag]breakfast[/tag] probably for a significant majority of the days of every week. I’m not talking about that instant oatmeal stuff, because that’s basically a 1:1 ratio of oats to sugar, but rather, those big old cylinders of oats and nothing else. Some might complain that it takes too long to prepare, but seriously, 5 minutes is nothing. I make my oatmeal as I wait for my tea to steep and as both take about 5 minutes it’s very convenient.

Oatmeal is very good for you. It’s full of fiber, appears to have a “very low” glycemic index, and probably has all sorts of vitamins and stuff too. I don’t really know what glycemic index means, but diabetes.ca is telling me that it’s a measure of how much a food will raise blood glucose compared against white bread or something like that. This is apparently a good thing for reasons described on the linked page.

Another thing is that apparently oatmeal is a prebiotic or some such, and will help maintain the health of my gut flora.

But enough about why oatmeal is so great. The last time I bought oats, I made the terrible mistake of purchasing [tag]quick oats[/tag] instead of [tag]old fashioned oats[/tag]. Now, I didn’t really know the difference before just now when I looked it up, but from my personal experience, I find the quick variety to be quite inferior. I don’t know why, but I feel like they taste and feel different. Just looking at them, it looks like they’ve been shredded into little bits or something which I guess makes them cook faster, or something, but I also feel like it makes them taste like gross sludge.

The actual difference, according to the Quaker product info page is just that. They’re thinner and cut up more so they cook faster, but otherwise identical. The difference in preparation time of 4 minutes or so, is totally worth the vastly improved texture and in my opinion flavor, for old fashioned oats. I’m still slowly making my way through this package of quick oats, though I’m very tempted to start baking lots of cookies in an effort to use them up faster so I don’t throw them out to get back to old fashioned oats for breakfast.

I wonder what else I might use to flavour my oats. At first, I was using brown sugar to sweeten, and raisins as well. I used jam a couple times after running out of brown sugar and before switching to molasses. I should look into other fruits too, I think.