Oatmeal Kids (Of All Ages) Will Love

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Oatmeal has gotten a bad rap.  Kids (and adults) may view it as a health food with all the flavor of drywall.  There are a lot of ways to get kids of all ages to wake up and WANT oatmeal for their breakfast of choice.

Of course, the health benefits are clear.  I’m 34, and while I don’t worry about this kind of stuff, my family history of very high cholesterol had me wondering about the claim Wilford Brimley made about Quaker oats removing cholesterol from your bloodstream.  So I decided to run a little self-experiment.  In one year, my cholesterol dropped from over 300 down to 164.  Call me a believer.

But what about that drywall?

I found that oatmeal is one of the most versatile breakfasts you can imagine.  Because you’re cooking it (as opposed to dry cereal which you just add milk to), there are any number of things you can work into the pot.  My personal favorite combination is a scoop of peanut butter, a handful of raw, unprocessed cacao nibs, and some shredded coconut.  I have experimented with all of the following, and would heartily recommend them in just about any combination:

  • Cacao nibs (raw, unprocessed chocolate).
  • shredded coconut
  • peanut butter
  • raisins
  • freshly ground flax seeds
  • crumbled almonds and/or walnuts
  • cinnamon
  • nutmeg

Top with just about any kind of fruit and some yogurt, and you have yourself a meal made for a king, in under 10 minutes for the whole family (faster if you use ‘quick oats’).
Scott Cooney is the author of Build a Green Small Business:  Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur (McGraw-Hill) and looks forward to his organic oatmeal every morning.

Twitter:  ScottCooney

2 thoughts on “Oatmeal Kids (Of All Ages) Will Love”

  1. I eat oatmeal almost every day & am always looking for new combinations. I love cranberries & almonds in mine, and I usually sweeten with honey or real maple syrup. I also like chopped walnuts & golden raisins. Also, diced apples (added while cooking to soften) & cinnamon. Vanilla or even plain almond milk is good added at the end as well.

    One thing you didn’t mention is soaking. I always soak my oats the night before. 1/2 cup of oats in 1/2 cup of filtered water with a tsp of real, unsweetened yogurt. This cuts down on the phytic acid & helps you absorb all the nutrients from the oats. Plus you can use the slower cooking (and more healthful) oats because soaking cuts the cooking time in half.

    Thanks for the new suggestions!

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