Newbie Oatmeal Questions

Diet and Nutrition
1

What the fuck is wrong with my oatmeal?

Sorry for the terribly newbie questions, but these need to be answered before I flip out. Keep in mind I just started using oatmeal as a good carb source for eating healthy, so I know shit about it (I don’t even know what it really is, it is a cereal, are they grains, why can’t you just eat them with milk like other cereals?)

1 - First off, what is the best oatmeal? Can someone give me some brand names? This is the oatmeal my mom bought me: http://www.kashi.com/goleanhotcereal_vanilla.aspx

Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients: Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Evaporated Cane Juice, Chicory Root Fiber, Kashi? Seven Whole Grains and SesameTM Blend (Whole: Hard Red Winter Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley, Triticale, Long Grain Brown Rice, Buckwheat, Sesame Seeds), Whey Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Isolate, Whole Flax Seeds, Potassium Chloride, Guar Gum, Molasses, Natural Vanilla Flavor, Evaporated Salt, Cinnamon.

2 - What’s the best way to cook the shit? On the package it says “Add package with 2-3 cups water and microwave for 2-3 minutes).” Well my bowl wasn’t big enough so I put in 1.5 cups of water, cooked it for a minute (my microwave is really really powerful) and all I got was a bunch of soggy oats at the bottom of a bowl filled with hot water. I had to drain it to find the godamn oats.

3 - We can’t really afford a blender, so until we find some like 20 buck cheap used one, how do I mix some Grow! Protein into my oats? Can I just cook the oats (however it is that you cook them…) with some scoops of the protein powder? Grow! says to mix 2-3 scoops with cold water in a blender/shaker, so I dunno if it’s OK to just mix it in with a spoon into some yogurt or into the oats or whatever.

Sorry for the incredibly newbie questions, any answers would be greatly appreciated. I’ll probably have some other stupid questions about eggs and cottage cheese sometime later…

2

[quote]danmaftei wrote:
Ingredients: Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Evaporated Cane Juice, Chicory Root Fiber, Kashi? Seven Whole Grains and SesameTM Blend (Whole: Hard Red Winter Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley, Triticale, Long Grain Brown Rice, Buckwheat, Sesame Seeds), Whey Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Isolate, Whole Flax Seeds, Potassium Chloride, Guar Gum, Molasses, Natural Vanilla Flavor, Evaporated Salt, Cinnamon.[/quote]
This is what you want…

Ingredients: Whole Grain Rolled Oats

The end.

3

Look for “Steel Cut Oats”. Ingredients: Whole grain oats. They taste much better than any of the “instant” varieties, and are much healthier.

They take about 30 minutes to cook, but it is easy to just cook a large batch and then toss it in the fridge.

To add Grow!, I usually just mix the powder into the oats after they are cooked.

Stay away from any of the flavored varieties of oatmeal, or any type that has ingredients other than oats.

4

Dev is right…it should contain Oats and that’s it.

I stopped cooking my oats because they swell up when you cook them. I just throw 2 cups of oats in a bowl, enough water so that they just start sticking together, 3 scoops of Grow! mix it up and add water if necessary. If you want it hot I suppose you could add hot water instead of cold water. The oats will swell a little but less than if you prepare it with the box directions.

5

More info than you will ever need…

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/recipes/brief_history_of_oats.htm

6

Actually, one of my favorites has flaxmeal in it as well. I forget the name of if though.

7

[quote]danmaftei wrote:
Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients: Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Evaporated Cane Juice, Chicory Root Fiber, Kashi? Seven Whole Grains and SesameTM Blend (Whole: Hard Red Winter Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley, Triticale, Long Grain Brown Rice, Buckwheat, Sesame Seeds), Whey Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Isolate, Whole Flax Seeds, Potassium Chloride, Guar Gum, Molasses, Natural Vanilla Flavor, Evaporated Salt, Cinnamon.
[/quote]

My oatmeal doesn’t come with all these extra ingredients! Damn, just look what I’ve been missing. :frowning:

8

Sic, I’m too gullible and too dumb to tell if that was sarcasm lol. I’m getting a lot of mixed opinions here… so I understand “whole grain rolled oats” is good, but are all those other things OK?

What type of oatmeal do you guys use?

9

[quote]SicTorn wrote:
danmaftei wrote:
Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients: Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Evaporated Cane Juice, Chicory Root Fiber, Kashi? Seven Whole Grains and SesameTM Blend (Whole: Hard Red Winter Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley, Triticale, Long Grain Brown Rice, Buckwheat, Sesame Seeds), Whey Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Isolate, Whole Flax Seeds, Potassium Chloride, Guar Gum, Molasses, Natural Vanilla Flavor, Evaporated Salt, Cinnamon.

My oatmeal doesn’t come with all these extra ingredients! Damn, just look what I’ve been missing. :([/quote]

:slight_smile: Anybody know what evaporated cane juice is?

10

[quote]caladin wrote:
More info than you will ever need…

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/recipes/brief_history_of_oats.htm[/quote]

yeah, that article covers everything. i use 0.5-1 cup rolled oats (uncooked) in one of my daily shakes. every sunday i also cook up a big batch of steel cut oats, because cooked oats + milk + frozen berries + vanilla grow is a gourmet meal.

given my family history of heart disease, eating oats everyday is more or less mandatory for me.

oh yeah, about the blender: used or new, you can find one for $20 nowadays. go get one.

11

Just eat it like you would any other cold cereal. Get the kind with the least amount of everything else in it.

I have a blender of protein shake in the refrig I just add to my bowl of oatmeal like milk.

Again, treat it like any other cold cereal and you’ll do fine. I ate it like that for years before I started lifting. Have been since a kid.

12

I like to get steel-cut oats when I make a trip to the natural foods store, but at the regular grocery store I get the big round container of “old fashioned oats” on the bottom shelf, under the boxes of instant oatmeal packets. I usually buy the store brand, but Quaker also makes it. There is usually “instant” and “old fashioned”, get the “old fashioned”.

I like to make up a few servings at a time and keep the extra in a tupperware in the fridge. Follow the directions on the carton, it takes about 5-10 minutes. I like to add a chopped apple and some cinnamon with a minute left.

Once it’s cooked, I spoon some into a bowl, add a splash of milk and about 1/4 cup lf cottage cheese and stir that up. Then I add 1 Tbsp ground flax seeds and 3/4 scoop of Low-Carb Grow! and stir it all together. I find adding the cottage cheese gives it a little creamier consistency, with just Grow! it can get a little too thick and sticky.

Also, my husband has been adding the uncooked oatmeal to his Grow! shakes in the morning for a quick breakfast. Hope this helps!

13

Evaporated cane juice? Probably a very fancy way to disguise sugar.

Anyway, what the heck is the confusion? You want oats. Nothing but oats. You don’t want instant packets of oats. You want oats, plain oats. Just oats. OATS!

O A T S

If you can’t easily find steel cut oats, you can go for the flakes, as long as the package talks about boiling them for a long time.

Once you get actual oats that aren’t “instant” or “quick” you can indeed just put milk on them.

I don’t mean to be obnoxious, but it is this simple…

  • put oats (raw or cooked) in bowl.
  • dump on desired amount of Grow!
  • dump on desired amount of milk.
  • stir until mixed.
  • eat.
14

I know it’s going to sound mean, but how in the world does a person manage to screw up making oatmeal? That’s about one step above not being able to make toast. Seriously…
oats+water+high-energy microwaves = tasty goodness

15

[quote]jchatt wrote:
I know it’s going to sound mean, but how in the world does a person manage to screw up making oatmeal? That’s about one step above not being able to make toast. [/quote]

You can make toast at home? Do you have to do a course or go to school for that. You guys in the USA are really lucky with your fancy Williams-Sonoma Toast Making Machines. I’d love to be able to make toast someday.

16

[quote]flynniec6 wrote:
jchatt wrote:
I know it’s going to sound mean, but how in the world does a person manage to screw up making oatmeal? That’s about one step above not being able to make toast.

You can make toast at home? Do you have to do a course or go to school for that. You guys in the USA are really lucky with your fancy Williams-Sonoma Toast Making Machines. I’d love to be able to make toast someday.[/quote]

In Canada we just put bread on top of the wood stove and it turns into toast.

OATS! O - A - T - S. When you take 2 or more grains of OATS and you roll them, you get ROLLED OATS. Rolled oats are cheaper than dirt. A bag of rolled oats costs $1.79 . A bag of potting soil (basically dirt) costs $3.29.

TNT

17

Oats. Great source of carbs and good source of fiber.

It has been said several times, but I will repeat it. The only ingrediant listed should be oats. I use them for breakfast almost every day. This is the shakes I had for breakfast this morning.

16 ounces skim milk
8 ounces water
1 cup raw oats
1 scoop chocolate Grow!
1 scoop chocolate 100% whey
4 ice cubes

Christopher