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> Take a cup of oatmeal from 1914 and a cup of Quaker Oats from 2011. Place them side by side on the counter top. Tell me how they are different from each other

by anamax 16y ago

> Take a cup of oatmeal from 1914 and a cup of Quaker Oats from 2011. Place them side by side on the counter top. Tell me how they are different from each other. The complete ingredients list for my cup of Quaker Oats from 2011 is "100% Whole Rolled Oats". (Yes, you can buy flavored oatmeal packets that contain other things, but your claim is different.) That's what you get in the big round tubs. What, exactly, is different about 1914's oatmeal? Note - saying "they've added lots of stuff" isn't an answer unless you can show that "100%" is wrong. ("Rolled" is a mechanical crushing process and doesn't imply that anything was removed or added.)

elptacek 16y ago
Whole rolled oats are typically made by having the chaff removed from the groat. Then the groats are parcooked by steaming, rolled flat and sometimes baked. These are your "Old Fashioned Quaker Oats." "Quick-Cooking" varieties are made in a similar way, only the chaff AND the bran have been removed. The bran is the nutritious part. Around the turn of the century, the US imported most of its oats from Scotland and Canada. These would have been "steel cut oats" with the bran left on them. Rolled oats would have been relatively new in 1914. I have no idea when quick-cooking oats appeared. So the difference is in what you buy. Think 'pig' versus 'pork' -- to a food scientist, there's a word for the grain in every stage of it's processing. But to us, it's just an oat. It's convenient language for Quaker to put "100% Whole Rolled Oats" on the package, because that's what they are. Are they whole rolled groats with the bran still on them? Or are they whole rolled endosperms, which are mostly the high-calorie starch that the germ uses to become a plant? BTW, if you love oatmeal as much as I do, you will appreciate slow-cooked oats: http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/oat-cuisine/index.html http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/oat-cuisine/index.html

by anamax 16y ago

elptacek 16y ago

Whole rolled oats are typically made by having the chaff removed from the groat. Then the groats are parcooked by steaming, rolled flat and sometimes baked. These are your "Old Fashioned Quaker Oats." "Quick-Cooking" varieties are made in a similar way, only the chaff AND the bran have been removed. The bran is the nutritious part. Around the turn of the century, the US imported most of its oats from Scotland and Canada. These would have been "steel cut oats" with the bran left on them. Rolled oats would have been relatively new in 1914. I have no idea when quick-cooking oats appeared. So the difference is in what you buy. Think 'pig' versus 'pork' -- to a food scientist, there's a word for the grain in every stage of it's processing. But to us, it's just an oat. It's convenient language for Quaker to put "100% Whole Rolled Oats" on the package, because that's what they are. Are they whole rolled groats with the bran still on them? Or are they whole rolled endosperms, which are mostly the high-calorie starch that the germ uses to become a plant? BTW, if you love oatmeal as much as I do, you will appreciate slow-cooked oats: http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/oat-cuisine/index.html http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/oat-cuisine/index.html