Who would have thought that in one week, we would talk about quilting, knitting, vultures and oatmeal?

I’m a big oatmeal fan.  I like it for breakfast and back in the old days, when Vince traveled a lot and was not home for dinner, Chad and I often had oatmeal for dinner.

There’s instant oatmeal.  That’s all I used to eat.  Open the packet, stir it into boiling water and it was done.  I loved that you could get variety — peaches & cream, blueberry, etc.   It was so convenient to keep a packet or two with me when I worked and if I missed lunch, I could have a packet of oatmeal.

Then I came across Old Fashioned Oats.

Old Fashioned Oats

To me, they tasted so much better, and I could make oatmeal cookies with this kind of oatmeal.  For a long time, that’s the kind of oatmeal we used.

Then a friend told me about steel cut oats.

McCann’s Irish Oatmeal

We love this oatmeal.  It’s crunchy and nutty and it just seems so healthy!

Yesterday I was cooking some oatmeal and decided to check to see just how much healthier steel cut oats are than other types of oats, including instant oatmeal.

Oatmeal Comparison

The instant oats are not used in this comparison because I didn’t have any of them here but I did have the above oats.  Some instant oatmeal that has the added flavors does have some type of sweetener added so the nutritional value of the instant oatmeal is probably way different from the three above.  On the left are the regular steel cut oats.  They’re what we normally use for our oatmeal but they take 20 – 25 minutes to prepare.  For my preparedness supplies, I keep the Quick Cook Steel Cut Oats.  They cook in about 7 minutes.  I figure if I’m cooking over an open fire or having to cook quickly, I’d rather be boiling oats for 7 minutes vs. 20 – 25 minutes.  On the right are the Old Fashioned Oats.  I only use those for cookies.

Nutrition Comparison

I’m sure no one ever told me but I assumed because I was eating steel cut oats, which in my mind is “whole grain”, I was eating a much healthier oatmeal but when reading the labels, which I obviously had never done . . all three of these are pretty much exactly the same – same calories, same fiber content, same sugar content, same fat content . . exactly the same.

Under the FAQs Quaker Oats discusses this very issue.  Research revealed that their is some difference in the glycemic impact.  The steel cut oats take longer to digest, therefore leaving you feeling full longer, as well as well as helping keep the blood sugar levels more even.

So, for us, we eat steel cut oats because we like them better, but not because they have more fiber, or less calories.