Do you really know how to eat oats?

Introduction: These days, oats are favored for their unique health benefits, but many people are likely to jump on the bandwagon without understanding why. After reading this article, you'll be able to eat oats with full knowledge.

How to Choose Oat Products

Which foods contain beta-glucan? Konjac, mushrooms, brewer's yeast, reishi, highland barley, buckwheat, barley, beans, corn, and oats are among them. If ranked by content, oats take the top spot. It is estimated that eating just 100 grams of oats can provide you with at least 6-8 grams of beta-glucan. Therefore, oats are indisputably the best source of beta-glucan for the human body.

However, there are many oat products on the market, such as oat groats, instant oats, rolled oats, fortified cereal oats, oat rice, oat noodles, and oat drink powders. Which one is better?

Nut and Milk Porridge

First, read the ingredient list carefully to distinguish between real and fake rolled oats. The nutritional value of an oat product is directly related to its oat content; for example, 100% pure natural oats are better than instant products with other additives. When shopping, carefully read the product's ingredient list. A pure, natural oat product will only list "oats" in its ingredients, while products with lower nutritional value will also contain ingredients like "vegetable fat powder," "white sugar," "maltodextrin," and "food additives."

Second, cook them whenever possible. Cooked oats are better than instant ones. Because beta-glucan is a water-soluble fiber, its health benefits are only realized when it is dissolved. Even cooking for just 3 minutes can significantly increase the dissolution of beta-glucan, whereas the dissolution of beta-glucan from directly prepared rolled oats is relatively limited.

Third, the stickier, the better. During the cooking process, oat porridge becomes increasingly viscous. This viscosity comes from beta-glucan. The higher the beta-glucan content, the greater the viscosity, the better the health benefits, and the smoother the texture.

Fourth, don't blindly trust imported products. Imported oats offer no nutritional advantage, and some are even inferior to domestically produced ones.

Pumpkin and Meatball Porridge

Tips for Eating Rolled Oats

Among oat products, people prefer rolled oats because they are a convenience food that doesn't require long periods of high-temperature cooking. For example, raw rolled oats only need to be cooked for 20-30 minutes, while pre-cooked rolled oats only need 5 minutes (or 3 minutes if cooked with milk), making them suitable for busy office workers for breakfast. However, to get the maximum amount of beta-glucan, you should master a few tips:

1. Don't confuse cereal with rolled oats. Rolled oats are made from flattened oat groats, about the size of a soybean, and retain their shape (instant rolled oats may look a bit broken, but their original shape is still recognizable). Cereal, on the other hand, is a mixture of various grains like wheat, rice, corn, and barley, with oats making up only a small part or none at all. Foreign cereals often contain dried fruits, nut slices, and bean fragments, which are relatively better as they at least increase the dietary fiber content. Domestic cereals, however, often contain maltodextrin, sugar, non-dairy creamer, and artificial flavors. Sugar and maltodextrin can raise blood sugar quickly, and non-dairy creamer contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which includes "trans fatty acids" that can promote heart disease. Therefore, choose with caution.

Oat Crisps

2. The less sweet, the better. Natural grains are not sweet. If a small bag (40g) of rolled oats tastes noticeably sweet, it means it contains about 20g of sugar, which means half of what you bought is actually white sugar, cutting its health benefits in half. Also, be wary of "sugar-free" products. If a product is sugar-free but still sweet, it must contain a high-intensity sweetener like saccharin, acesulfame potassium, or aspartame. These are mostly chemically synthesized with more drawbacks than benefits. What's worse, only a tiny amount of these intense sweeteners is needed, and they are often bulked up with starch hydrolysates like maltodextrin. Maltodextrin, like sugar, can raise blood sugar quickly, so people who need to control their blood sugar must not be misled by the "sugar-free" label. Choosing unsweetened pure rolled oats is the wise choice.

3. Fortified nutrition is unnecessary. Rolled oats are already highly nutritious. The high-calcium, high-iron, and high-protein oats advertised by manufacturers offer little added value. If the "cereal" product contains a very small proportion of oats, adding other nutrients is just for show and should not tempt you.

Milk-flavored Oat Steamed Buns

4. Don't judge by the packaging. Some brands with simple packaging, plain appearance, and no added ingredients have a light taste, a sticky texture, and can even be slightly sharp to the palate. These are the real natural rolled oats and should be your first choice. Don't use packaging quality as the standard for selection.

5. Cooking is better than preparing with hot water. Oat products in the supermarket are for either cooking or preparing with hot water. Weighing the two, cooked oats are healthier. First, they don't contain added sugar, non-dairy creamer, maltodextrin, or artificial flavors. Second, they provide the greatest feeling of fullness and have the slowest impact on blood sugar. While instant products are convenient and tasty, they often contain sugar or non-dairy creamer (which contains trans fatty acids), which not only fails to enhance their health benefits but can also negate their disease-preventing effects.

Milk-flavored Oat and Fruit Porridge