Sorry For The Inconvenience.

• By vishwa on General

• October 21, 2010

A client asked me whether he could consume oats? By the way, I am repeatedly asked about consuming oats by my clients in the gym. All these days my answer was a definite no, but my views about oats has changed now. I am deeply sorry, for I have misguided many of you all these days, as I was against the consumption of oats.

My argument was that since raw oats take a lot of time to be cooked, and cooked oats literally takes few minutes to be prepared, I was of the thought that the processing of oats makes the grain to be cooked easily. But now after doing thorough research on the internet I have come to know that though the oats are processed they are not being refined. So cooked oats can be consumed without any hindrance as long as it is not flavored. Instant oats which are usually flavored should not be consumed, for they are full of sugar, so it defeats the whole purpose of consuming a healthy cereal. Just like raw oats cooked oats comes with a full package of the essential ingredients needed in a healthy cereal. Since I thought the processing of oats would have made the cereal devoid of fiber as fiber is one of the essential ingredient needed in a healthy meal, for it helps in stabilizing the blood sugar, which is essential to ward off diabetes and other diabetes related heart diseases.
Moreover, the processing of oats is a clean-cut procedure, which clears our mind from all the doubt we have about processing oats as being unhealthy. The first step of processing is cleaning and then oats are hulled and heated. Oats are heated because hulling causes the oats to become rancid within four days and heating avoids the oats to become rancid. So we see that nowhere oats are being refined.

But it should be known that consuming oats is merely an option we have to eat a healthy breakfast. So please don’t go gaga about only consuming oats as being the be all and end all of consuming a healthy meal. We do have various other options like whole wheat chapathi, dishes prepared out of brown rice, ragi and jowar, which can be equally beneficial.

Anyway, when you ask for oats ask for plain oats, and not the flavored one. And when it comes to corn flakes, I believe most of the products available are all flavored, so please avoid them in your diet.

PS: Sugar rises your blood sugar level to a far greater degree, and overtime it may lead to the onset of diabetes which can ruin your lifestyle. Simple sugars such as table sugar, sweets, glucose, chocolates, flavored food items should be avoided.