I'm reading the Clean Diet/Exercise books as the author inspires me, partly her age when she got quite fit and mostly because of her muscle/body/ideas. I know weight trainers love oatmeal but I'm just trying to find a brand/type that is organic or most healthy as a staple. I've bought the steel cut before and that's time consuming, any tips on how to best cook it? Or how about whole or quick oats? I've bought the weight loss quick oats and they taste good. But if I'm going to eat CLEAN I want to make sure it's the best since I'll be eating a lot of it.

You can cook steel cut oats ahead of time in a crockpot and reheat.

The cooking times between rolled oats and quick rolled oats aren't really all that different, I'd just go with rolled oats. Trader Joe's carries a "whole grain hot cereal" mixture and you can find some at Whole Foods that contain more than oatmeal. You can easily microwave rolled oats with some water (or whatever you like) for quick cooking.

I use rolled oats, and I just nuke them for a couple of minutes. I'm lazy and I don't have a lot of time in the morning, plus even though steel cut are overall better for you, nutritionally rolled are just about there. Did that just make sense?

Trader Joe's and Whole Foods is 45 min away but maybe I need to make a once a month trip there for some pantry items like oats... we have a small Vitamin Cottage though and they have the Bob's brand. Are you saying I should look for plain old rolled oats? I found the Bob's Musuli and bought that yesterday. I feel good today on oatmeal, whey, wheat germ, flaxseed with berries although I'll admit I feel more energized in the am with meats and fat! But clean eating doesn't allow for the sausage...

Bob's Red Mill has some good mixes, so wherever you buy those.

You could look for plain old rolled oats, that is what quaker oats is, although I'd avoid the quick oats. I do really like steel cut oats though and would recommend them. As I said, they can be cooked in a crockpot overnight and reheated subsequent days. Steel cut oats, unsweetened almond milk, pumpkin puree and some pumpkin pie spice is divine You can even add in some walnuts for a bit of a crunch. I was addicted to that mixture for a while. Thinking about it though makes me want to cook it again...

I saw a recipe for steel cut oats in a crock pot. My mom's "recipe" is to take plain oats, add nuts, seeds and other items, soak in milk in a bowl in the fridge overnight and they are ready in the am after mixing in some berries/fruit. If it doesn't matter much if they are steel or not maybe her strategy is a good one... she doesn't use the quick oats. I don't have a crock pot but I might go buy a small one. The recipe I saw looked good with cranberries etc added into the oats.

I nuke steel cut oats (as well as the regular rolled) and it takes exactly 2 minutes. Use a BIG bowl, because it tends to bubble up a lot. Before I had to worry about gluten contamination, I used McCanns Steel Cut or good old Old Fashioned Quaker Oats.

If you do go to Trader Joes, they sell a line of chicken sausage which is natural, organic and low fat. No nitrates Believe it or not, so does Sam's Club. Just make sure to read the labels carefully and avoid the ones that have added sugar.

Mel

Mel - I've never microwaved my oats - I've either done the sit overnight method or cooked on the stove. What quantities of oats to liquid do you use for the microwave? Is it the same?

Thanks!

Not Mel but I eat Old-fashioned Quaker oats. 1/3 dry oatmeal and 2/3 cup water, microwaved (like Mel says -- in a BIG bowl!) for 1 minute, 40 seconds.

For the Quaker, it's 2:1 water to oatmeal, so you can adjust your portion accordingly.

Thanks Meg - yes I do know the difference! Here's something that I cannot figure out. I cut down on my oatmeal when I found out how many calories were in the oats. I know it's healthy calories but still it seemed high. Here's the thing - this website has oats as 600 calories for a cup, while Quaker's website says half that!! Now interestingly enough the weight total of each website is also very different but oats can't be that different just by brand, can they??

All you calorie counters who love your oatmeal, what do count as the calories in a cup of oats?

Mmmm, oatmeal! I eat it 3-4 times a week. I usually nuke the old-fashioned oats for 2-2.5 min, add a few walnuts, raisins and a little skim milk. I like the steel cut ones too, but I usually save them for the weekend and cook them in a pan. It just dawned on me, when I was about to whine that I don't have a big enough bowl to nuke them in, that I could use my smallest mixing bowl! Duh - lightbulb moment! I'll try it tomorrow!

ETA: I use twice as much water as oats, like Meg, and add a shake of salt. I nuke longer because I have an older-than-dirt microwave. If I make them at work, with a newer micro, I use less time.

Elisa, I always go by the nutrition label on the package. Quaker lists 1/2 cup dry (makes 1 cup prepared) as 150 calories, so those are the numbers I use. Calorie counting sites use generic numbers, often from the USDA. I figure they're just averages and ballpark figures. So I go by the package, figuring that's the most accurate for a specific product.

Pat, I always use a small glass mixing bowl!

I looked at that link a little closer, Elisa, and I think it's mistaken. It lists a one cup serving size as 156 grams, with 103 g of carbs. Quaker lists 1/2 cup dry as 40 grams, with 27 grams of carbs. So 1 cup serving of Quaker would be 80 grams, not 156 grams, and would have 54 g of carbs, not 103. I'm guessing that the nutritional facts given on Calorie-Count.com are really for TWO cups dry, not one cup as listed, because it's almost exactly double the Quaker numbers. Does that make sense?

I checked the official USDA web site for oatmeal and it says 307 calories for 1 cup, with 55 grams of carbs. So it agrees with the Quaker numbers.

Enjoy your oatmeal - it's only half as caloric as you thought!

That makes sense, Meg. I know when I was counting WW points, oatmeal was 2 pts, which the Quaker number would work out to, given the calories and fiber count. My DH, btw, eats rolled oats as they come from the box. He mixes them with whatever cold cereal he's eating, pours on milk (and sugar!), and usually fruit, and eats. I cannot get him to eat cooked oatmeal, unless you mix it with another hot cereal. We get a cereal called Malt-o-Meal, which like cream of wheat, and I often cook one serving of that with one serving of oats. It's not bad, and he'll eat that.