Everyone makes mistakes. The internet is full of mistakes. And, when it comes to news about our dietary health, what often happens is, one trend or another becomes popular, and everyone wants to say something about it — causing mistakes!
Some folk have published such mistakes in books.In 2007, one health writer asked kids, "Fruits and Vegetables: What Doesn't Count?" Two foods that didn't count, in that book, are pretty basic to wellness. In the book published by DK Limited, potatoes and sweet potatoes "shouldn't count as one of your five daily servings" of fruits and vegetables!
I wouldn't have believed someone published that. That's pretty outrageous. But that actually appears in print, in a book still being sold today.
If I had to guess, the book's writer didn't mean to say potatoes and sweet potatoes don't have the nutrition we need for good health. If I had to guess, something went wrong when the book was edited. If I had to guess, I think the writer may have written, instead, that fast-food fried potatoes (some types of French fries and tater tots) don't have the fiber and other nutrients we need, just as potato chips and ketchup don't have the nutrition we need.
I'm pretty sure that's what the writer must have said before the book was edited, because "ketchup" is in the book's list of foods that don't count as fruits or vegetables. Ketchup, most fast-food fries, and tater tots, don't count as part of our daily fruits and vegetables. But potatoes, just generally, do.
Everyone Makes Mistakes
Potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes (without the heavy candy coating) are actually packed with nutrition. We just need to know how to prepare them. If we cut them thin and deep fry them, we destroy the nutrition we need. If we cut them thin and put them in a very hot oven so that they dry out, we destroy the nutrition we need. And if we boil them a long time, or if we turn them into soup, we may break down these vegetables' fibers so that the fiber doesn't help our health.
But, ugggh. Everyone makes mistakes.
When that book was written, for children, calendars had turned to a new millennium. And people were talking about all kinds of diets. Editors of the above book may have misunderstood the book's author, because of countless ways people were writing about carbohydrates (or carbs).
Writing about low-carb diets had become popular, because a company called Atkins Nutritionals had begun to sell information and products that capitalized on that trend, according to a CNN Money report in January 2006. But that low-carb trend was beginning to fail, as Atkins lost steam due to bankruptcy — and as some companies (those processing high-carb foods) began to downplay carb craziness through assuring customers they were adding fiber to many products.
More than 15 years later, food science has helped us know so much more than back then. We know whole foods are healthier than any processed food, and that we need to be eating at least a few whole grains with each meal.
Let's Have Oats! But Can We Avoid Soaking Them?
Oatmeal is a whole grain that should be very popular. It's a whole food that's inexpensive and potentially healing. But some folks dislike it; many folk misunderstand it; and plenty of internet and book misinformation is leading countless consumers to prepare it in ways that maybe aren't so good.
One thing that's misunderstood about oatmeal, is whether or not it's safe for diabetes. While it's true science is still investigating whether type 1 diabetes can be helped by oats, and while it's true children four-months-old and younger shouldn't have oats (always talk with your child's doctor), one fact of the matter for type 2 diabetic adults, is that rolled oats are safe.
Rolled oats are not only safe in type 2 diabetes cases; rolled oats can be a huge help in these cases. (Read all about oats in my post, Bread is for Living!) One of the beneficial (dietary) carbs in oats, beta-glucan, is different from other beneficial carbs. Despite the seemingly small amount of it in oatmeal, beta-glucan is a soluble fiber that manages to lower blood sugar in cases of type 2 diabetes, and it outperforms the effects of sugary carbs not only in oatmeal — it outperforms the sugary carbs in whole meals, lowering both blood sugar and blood pressure.
As to how to prepare these healthy oats, there is more than a little misinformation out there about that, too! Much of the misinformation may be because of a trend that says to soak your oats overnight. ... Everyone makes mistakes.
One oat-soaking article, online, uses the words "oat groats" interchangeably with "rolled oats," proving the writer read something and tried to explain it, without really understanding. The writer probably read that oat groats have to be soaked overnight, so we can digest the oats well. But the writer made a mistake in thinking rolled oats are the same as groats, and developed an article that is really about soaking rolled oats — not groats — overnight. Believe it or not, that's a popular mistake.
Groats are the hard, whole seeds of oats. We need to soak oat groats, because the whole seeds are not friendly to digestion, can block absorption of some of the nutrients we need, and can cause gas and bloating. But very few people, worldwide, are eating oat groats!
The oats we find on grocery shelves are either steel-cut, old-fashion rolled, or instant. And any of these can be eaten right out of the box (on top of yogurt, for example), without harming digestion. In fact, those three types of processed oats are already lightly cooked — as in very lightly toasted. But boiling them a little can help us get more benefit from eating oats; and, because they are cut into thick slices, steel-cut oats should be boiled or microwaved longer than rolled oats.
A Bowl of Healing, in Less Than Two Minutes
How long to boil oats is really up to individual taste, but I suspect many people's dislike of oats is because they are used to eating oats that are very mushy (that are instant, or that are boiled for too long).
I prefer a bowl of oats that has lots of flakes that are still a little stiff and whole, instead of mushy. When I mirowave oats, I want to see a lot of slices of oat that are still whole instead of mushed into cream. I avoid instant oats, not just because instant oats become mushy, but also because the instant oats are chopped into crumbs that don't give us as much benefit as when oats are in slices that are more whole.
By the way, instant oats may not be a good option for diabetics. And, if making an oatmeal smoothie for a diabetic, be sure not to put oats in a blender; instead, prepare the smoothie in a blender, then stir in your oats (right out of the box) with a spoon. That helps preserve the healthy fiber that benefits type 2 diabetes.
Another word of caution about cooking with diabetes: Putting a lid on oats, while they are cooking, causes you to lose more of the beneficial fiber in oats. Recognizing oats cook differently than rice, don't cover oats with a lid, regardless of whether on the stovetop or in the microwave. Putting oats under pressure of a lid can turn them as much to mush as soaking them does.
One way I've found to make a bowl of oats that's the texture I like, is to only pour just enough water to cover the dry oats before microwaving. The more water or milk in the oats, the longer the time for the oats to absorb the water or milk, the more mushy the oats!
And the really good thing about my eating oats that aren't so mushy, is that it's better nutrition for me. At least one study's findings, published in the Journal of Functional Foods in 2017, implies that oats that are close to raw, give us 26 percent of the beneficial fiber that lowers cholesterol and blood sugar, and that increases insulin sensitivity; but very cooked oats only give us nine percent of that beneficial fiber.
The same principle probably applies to oats that soak overnight unnecessarily. By soaking the oats too long (or by eating pre-sweetened and other instant oats), we diminish the helpfulness of a needed fiber: a fiber that otherwise makes oats safe and beneficial.
Soaking can turn a food that's good for type 2 diabetes and for diabetes prevention, into a food that may not be very helpful at all.
So, instead of soaking, why not spend less than two minutes waiting to microwave?
Can I get an amen?
Some folk like oatmeal that's watery or milky, and that's just fine — as long as the oats have not soaked a long time in the water or milk, and as long as the oats aren't cooked for too long. Click the picture above for a simple, stovetop recipe. This recipe uses apple juice and fresh apples as sweeteners and for added nutrition. And the ground cinnamon (not cinnamon sugar!) isn't only tasty; the cinnamon, a few times a week, adds more antioxidants for good blood pressure — and a boost in helping lower cancer risks.
For only a few minutes more in preparation and cook time, recipes like this offer far more therapeutic benefit, and fewer bad carbs, than in eating small, pre-sweetened packs of oatmeal. Like Cheerios, small, pre-sweetened packs of oatmeal are instant oats that aren't as safe and beneficial for persons with type 2 diabetes; yet such persons may eat as much as three cups of cooked rolled oats (one- and one-half dry cups) as part of a balanced meal (for instance, with eggs and a banana) — and have stable blood sugar for hours, studies indicate.
But let's always ask for grace.
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