I come from the cereal generation. A time when Trix really was for kids, Smacks were still sugared, and the Honeycomb Hideout was a dream house that would make Barbie want to put her estate on the market. Interest rates be damned. Yeah, when cereal was good, if not necessarily good for you.
It’s not that my folks didn’t cook; far from it. Just about everyone in my family did – and can – cook well. But even with a complete and generally balanced breakfast readily accessible and available, it was hard for a kid to resist the siren’s cry of sugar-sweetened, Technicolor bliss that was cereal. Still is. Especially when every spoonful of this pre-adolescent awesomeness is awash in a sea of (gasp!) whole milk.
Good old days, indeed.
But things change, tastes change, and what you learn about fueling your body changes, too. Even logging 40 or 50 miles a week probably isn’t enough to offset the refined sugars and other ultra-processed ingredients you’ll find in any given box of the good stuff. So you look for a healthier, more grownup substitute. Enter, oatmeal. Which may be the most flavorless descriptor of a provision that shares its heritage with porridges, gruels, hasty puddings, and other dubiously-named dishes.
Let’s cut it really real. Without a cartoon-covered box, prizes inside, or flavor of any sort, oatmeal doesn’t do much to sell itself. Is oatmeal that self-assured that it doesn’t need to participate in some superficial beauty contest, and believes consumers like me will appreciate it for what’s on the inside instead? Apparently, it is and we do. Oatmeal is a near $6 billion dollar global market – most of it being sold in the US – and is forecast to continue with strong sales.
And on the subject of what’s inside: I feel the contents of just one of those cardboard cylinders is enough oatmeal to last somewhere between an era and epoch. Although the cardboard cylinder may have a touch more flavor, the oatmeal is healthier, of course. You can tell, because it tastes the way it does. Or doesn’t.
Lest we need reminding; oats are packed with essential vitamins and minerals, and even a decent amount of protein, considering it is a plant-based food, offered Chef Rhonda Stewart, a senior instructor at Johnson & Wales University here in Charlotte. Oats are fairly low in calories yet high in volume so they keep you feeling fuller longer. “Just don’t load them with extra sugar!”
Well, where’s the fun in that?
Matt Dengler is a dietician and owner of RxRD Nutrition. He piled on the guilt and these tips to make oatmeal taste better than the container it comes in: You can make your bowl of oatmeal even more nutritious by adding things like peanut butter, fruit, nuts, seeds, nut butter, and spices. For an extra protein boost, try mixing in protein powder.
“Overnight oats have become increasingly popular,” added Dengler. “To make a quick and nutritious breakfast, you can prepare them the night before with ingredients like milk, Greek yogurt, protein powder, peanut butter, and fresh fruit.”
I’ve tried to find my brand or style or place in the oatmeal world; experimenting with oats in their many and not-so-splendored forms: old fashioned, rolled, steel cut, instant – even Irish. Differing textures, extrapolated cooking times, and all the TikTok meal prep recipes in production can’t change the fact that oatmeal is utterly bereft of flavor without some type of planning, and an array of accessories.
Since I’m now a little too tall to stand upright in the old Hideout; overnight oats with hemp hearts, nuts, and berries are a begrudging breakfast staple of mine these days. But I’ll still lean in hard to big bowl of Honeycomb every now and again. I figure an occasional bowl of nostalgia never hurt anyone. Or maybe that’s just the sugar talking…
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