Do you eat breakfast? Shame on you if you don’t! Don’t get me started on the benefits of starting your day off right! If there were a pill that was super cheap, fought cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and cholesterol you’d probably jump right on it right? Well, you don’t have to take a pill, you just have to eat oatmeal - and you could do this everyday for months and not even have to eat the same flavor!
Dad and Mom Meadows eat oatmeal E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y! I love to give them a hard time about it (especially because they only eat it two different ways) but I’ve seen the benefits in their health when they started this daily regime. Plus, I can’t say anything because I eat oatmeal for breakfast at least half the time. Oatmeal can be pretty bland though and I get really bored if I don’t mix up the flavors. Well, over the years I have tried many different ways to make this yummy-health-in-a-bowl and I thought I would share some of the ideas.
For your base, mix:
½ cup dried old-fashioned oats (not instant - not as healthy! And no packaged pre-mixed oatmeal!)
1-cup milk (variations: soy milk, chocolate soy milk, water + 1/3 c. dry milk)
Flavor Variations:
Fruit
mix ½ cup fruit of choice (frozen or fresh chopped apples, peaches, pears, bananas, pineapple, mango, applesauce, berries, canned pumpkin, whatever sounds good!)
Spices
1 t. appropriate spice (cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, ginger, all spice, almond or vanilla extract)
Sweetener
1 teaspoon, more or less of Splenda or favorite sweetener (sometimes the fruit is sweet enough!)
Other Variations:
Add 1 T. peanut butter, small handful of favorite nuts; use sugar-free maple syrup or sugar-free coffee syrup in place of both seasoning and sweetener (the variations here are countless!) For super healthy additions add 1 T. ground flax seed (like Dad and Mom) or 2 T. wheat germ.
Microwave for 5 minutes on half power (stirring once or twice to keep from spilling over).
You can even make baked oatmeal
Try any type of fruit in place of the pineapple
And if you love those easy packets (that are filled with tons of chemicals) you can make your own here
So make sure and get you some power food and start your day off right!
Do you eat breakfast? What do you have?
Erin
If you like oatmeal.. check out this blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.katheats.com/ She eats oatmeal for breakfast everyday.. an I think has come up with any combination imaginable.
I love oatmeal! It helps with ulcers too! I'm not a breakfast eater by nature, but have started eating oatmeal everyday since October last year. As you said, it has great benefits!
ReplyDeleteOatmeal is great! Try the steel cut oatmeal if you have not. It takes a little longer to cook but it is the least processed and tastes great. Also, don't forget to offset the Carb with some protein to balance things out keep your blood sugar from spiking. I usually have the whites from a hard boiled egg with mine.
ReplyDeleteIt just so happens that I went to a class with a nutrionist this week and she gave a geat presentation about this topic.
Mrs. Lamkin spoke to our youth for free and it was very informative.
http://www.thelamkinsystem.com/index.html
I make little baggies of oatmeal for Brad to take to work. All he has to do is add water and cook it in the microwave.
ReplyDeleteMy fav is fresh blueberries and sugar free maple syrup!
I recently read that in a Harvard study of 3900 people researchers found that people who eat breakfast every days are 44% less likely to be overweight. Good enough for me :)
ReplyDeleteWe are doing oatmeal about 50-75% of our mornings. I love this particular blog spot "Passionate Homemaking" and this is the site that I learned how to soak oatmeal. It makes a huge difference in the texture of the oatmeal. I use organic whole oats which can actually end up being a little "rough". Soaking dramatically changed the texture to a porridge like consistency and they cooked up really fast! Although this author gives a few variations on the soaking medium... I use plain organic yogurt and it works wonderful! It's a way to sneak in yogurt because my husband hates the flavor of yogurt!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2008/09/soaked-oatmeal-breakfast.html
Josh, Elijah, and I eat oatmeal most mornings. My other family members are in rebellion.
ReplyDeleteOther mornings it is smoothies.
I can tell by this post that some people take their oatmeal quite seriously. lol....I didn't know it came in any other way than the packages until about 2 years ago. Learn something new everyday!
I buy those packets for my kids all the time. Thanks for the link, I'm going to make some.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for the comments and additional links. I do like the steel cut oats as well - longer cooking time, but even more good-for-you vitamins and fiber. It is so nice to see that people are getting more serious about eating right!
ReplyDelete