Superfood Tip 2: Oats

by Shereen Jegtvig

Start off your heart-healthy diet with a bowl of oat cereal for breakfast.  Oats are particularly good for you because they are a whole grain and high in fiber.  One type of fiber in oatmeal, called beta-glucan, will help lower your cholesterol levels easily and safely.  The fiber in oats also keep your digestive system healthy.  Oatmeal may be beneficial for people who have diabetes.  A preliminary study shows some diabetics were able to reduce their dosage of insulin by 40% simply by adding oatmeal to their diets.

It doesn’t really matter if you get your daily dose of oats in a cold cereal or as a bowl of oatmeal.  But you have to be careful with the added sugar.  Plain oatmeal has no added sugar, which is great because you can control the amount and type of sweetener you add, but some pre-sweetened contain 10 or more grams of sugar per serving.  Here’s a look at the oat cereals in our FoodEssentials database:

What’s interesting is the two cereals with the healthy sounding names and organic ingredients both have 14 grams sugar per serving.  Sure, it’s pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, but your body metabolizes both sweeteners about the same (both are roughly half glucose and half fructose) – too much of either adds too many calories.

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