*Editorial Note: Although we focused on healthy eating during the month of May, it seems our writers are continuing a dedication to good health this month too! Seems healthy eating is contagious.)

1. Oatmeal Tastes Good: Oatmeal is warm, soothing, and perfect for a cold morning. Oatmeal is malleable; everyone eats their oatmeal in their own special way. You can make your oatmeal sweet, savory, or bland. It’s perfect for stomach aches, toothaches, cramps, or even as a lunch when you’re too tired to make anything else!
2. The Whole Family Can Eat It: Oatmeal is a great breakfast food because people of all ages can eat it. Mix it with baby food for the littlest family members, make “breakfast oatmeal cookies” for the kids, and you can enjoy a hearty bowl of warm and creamy oatmeal. The serving size, ½ cup, is more than enough food and you will feel full for a long time.
3. You Can Eat It Hot or Cold: You can eat oatmeal the old fashioned way—by mixing it with milk or water and cooking (or microwaving it) but there’s tons of ways that oatmeal can be made into a great breakfast meal that’s not just for winter-time. Check out this recipe for Amish Baked Oatmeal which can be eaten hot or cold the next morning. I’ve made it and it’s delicious with some cold milk poured over a slice of it! Also, check out these incredibly healthy and delicious Oatmeal pancakes! (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Pancake/Detail.aspx) Substitute them in for your normal pancake recipe and no one will be able to tell the difference.
4. You Can Add Other Healthy Items to Oatmeal: Oatmeal is delicious plain, but you can add other high vitamin and healthy supplements to oatmeal as well. Try adding nuts, raisins, dried apricots, dates, slices of orange, baked apple, cinnamon, 100% cocoa powder, or honey. Even some low sugar whipped cream will help you get your daily dairy intake and what’s better than whipped cream in the morning?
5. Lower Your Cholesterol: Oatmeal lowers cholesterol because it is very high in (water) soluble fiber. When oatmeal is ingested the soluble fiber actually helps slow down the LDL, or “bad cholesterol” from being absorbed into the body. LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, is considered to be bad because it circulates in the blood and can build up and stick to the walls of the arteries which lead to the heart and the brain. When mixed with other bodily substances, LDL can thusly form a “plaque” on the arties’ walls which narrows the arties, as well as making them less flexible—this can lead to a heart attack, blood clot, or stroke. When your body ingests oatmeal, due to the paste-like consistency of the oatmeal, it travels slowly through the digestive track and along its way it attaches itself to the bile acids that contain LDL cholesterol. Because oatmeal is a fiber, it travels to the colon and then is excreted—taking the LDL cholesterol with it! According to Quaker Oatmeal, all it takes is 3/4 cup of oatmeal each day to help lower cholesterol.
6. Helps Your Stomach: Oatmeal is a special food in that it also has (water) insoluble fiber. Oatmeal has been known to help with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Diverticulitis; the fiber also promotes more regular bowel movements which makes you feel less bloated and have less stomach aches. Insoluble fiber helps prevent constipation (which can happen on some medications!) Because oatmeal moves slowly throughout the digestive track and absorbs a lot of water, it helps you stay full longer, thus ingesting less calories (and which is why it makes a great breakfast!)
7. Reduces the Risk of Cancer: Oatmeal has been known to prevent colon cancer by keeping an optimal pH in intestines to prevent cancerous cells from forming. The insoluble fiber has been known to cling to estrogen, which may cause breast cancer. Insoluble fiber has been known to attack, like in the cholesterol, certain bile acids therein reducing their toxicity levels and chances of becoming cancerous cells.
8. 100% Natural: It is very easy to find 100% natural rolled oats! While there are many options for Oatmeal on the market—the best and most healthy are the completely natural rolled oats with no sugar, flavor, or color added. You don’t need to go to your local organic store to find them, every supermarket has them—my local drugstore carries oatmeal!
9. Helps in Diabetes: Soluble fiber helps slow down the digestion of starch in the body. This prevents the blood sugar from spiking, especially after eating. Diabetes Digest states, “A new study suggest that people with type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes can lower their blood sugars significantly by increasing the amount of fiber in their diet beyond the levels currently recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).”
10. Vitamins: Oatmeal is chock full of vitamins and nutrients that you wouldn’t even know were in there. Oatmeal is full of niacin, riboflavin and iron; all of these nutrients help bolster your energy levels, which is why oatmeal is such a beneficial food to eat in the morning. Vitamin A is also very prominent in oatmeal which helps in eyesight as well as immunity (great for winter-time!), preventing birth defects, and red blood cell production; B6 is another vitamin in oatmeal which helps promote healthy brain functioning, Parkinson’s prevention, and is important in regulating all organs and overall body composure. There is also calcium in oatmeal, which we all know helps in maintaining strong teeth and bones.
How do you eat your oatmeal?
Olivia March Dreizen, © 2008 butyoudontlooksick.com
*The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and Quaker Oatmeal’s website were helpful when writing this article. Check their websites out for more information.