The Oat Continuum

Recipe

I’m a big fan of simple swaps. People are often surprised when I tell them to switch from instant oatmeal to regular oatmeal, and even more surprised when I suggest the old-fashioned oats over the quick cooking.

Did you know all three of those types of oats take almost the same amount of time to cook? So you have wasted yourself any time, and you’ve bumped up the nutritive value of your breakfast without changing the taste of anything.

The next step in improving that same breakfast? Switching to steel cut oats, or even groats. Now these take a little more time to prepare, but with a few tricks can be done with little effort. It’s worth it for the extra nutrition.

So what’s the difference between the oats?

They all start as oat groats. Groats are the hulled grain, which still include the germ, bran, and endosperm. {All good for you!} These parts of cereal grains are removed during processing as you move down the line towards rolled and instant oats.

Consider the groat the “whole” oat.

Next comes steel cut oats, which are groats that have been chopped into smaller pieces to make them cook a little quicker. They still contain all the good parts of the grain, but they’re broken down a little. {Any breaking down your body has to do is beneficial, so grains because less and less nutritious the smaller they get before eating.}

The next in line are rolled oats; the oats most people are familiar with. Rolled oats are simply groats that have been flattened, or rolled. It makes the surface area larger and therefore greatly reduces cooking time. These oats are often called “old fashioned” oats. They take about 2 minutes to cook.

If you keep venturing down the oatmeal processing line, you end up with “quick-cooking” oats. These are rolled oats that have been pressed a little thinner and cut into slightly smaller pieces, again decreasing the cooking time. Quick cooking oats cook in about a minute.

The last in succession are instant oats. The kind that most often come in the individual serving packages. Instant oatmeal is made from the thinnest pressed rolled oats that have been cut into small pieces and slightly precooked. They take 30 to 60 seconds to prepare. By this point in the oat chain, you barely have to do any work to digest them, and you can hardly call them “whole grain”. To add to that, instant oats usually come pre-mixed with sugary flavorings and a heap of preservatives.

So if you’re a instant oatmeal fan, I challenge you to make the switch to old fashioned. If you’re feeling adventurous, jump right on up to the big guys: steel cut or groats. They’re delicious and chewy, and can be ready for you to eat when you wake up in the morning.

To make groats, the wholest of whole grains, you can use this same crockpot steel cut oats strategy.

Print

Crockpot Oatmeal: How to Cook Groats

Ingredients

• 1 cup groats
• 3 cups water {or milk or a combo}
• cinnamon to taste

Instructions

1. Pour groats and liquid into crockpot.
2. Set on low and let cook overnight.
3. Add extra spices or add-ins before serving.
4. Feel free to double, triple, half, etc. the recipe. Stores in fridge well.
5. {Cooking time will vary based on crockpot & amount cooked- 8 hours on low works for me}

In the AM you have a big, chewy, bowl full of oat groats. {You can also mix them into rolled oats to make them chewier but not as dense as a whole bowl of groats.}

Have you tried groats?

Plus: Find out what I think are the best pregnancy books.