5 ms·

There are so many great first-meal options! I still like oatmeal, but sometimes it's sprouted grains and legumes with whatever veg from the local farm that no o

There are so many great first-meal options! I still like oatmeal, but sometimes it's sprouted grains and legumes with whatever veg from the local farm that no one else is going to eat, and beets. I make most of the family meals and because I'm recovering from GERD also I make my own different lower-impact meals (without garlic, onions, tomatoes, citrus, coffee, chocolate, or alcohol), usually in the microwave on lower power for longer (cubed beets cook well this way: 8-10min at 30% power in a 1100W microwave), otherwise too much water leaves as steam. I'll add nutritional yeast and homemade kimchi for taste, or the yeast and some soy sauce in the evening (the last batch of kimchi has some garlic in it, and I'll risk eating small amounts earlier in the day). Hydration: I've noticed that I'm not so thirsty anymore, eating meals with so much vegetable matter, possibly because there's a lot of water in amongst the fiber and it gets freed up during digestion?

thaumasiotes 3y ago
Oatmeal isn't exactly an alternative to cereal.
- meristohm 3y ago
  My point was I've eaten cereal most of my life, in the form of rolled oats or steel-cut oats (and now increasingly using oat groats), not the sweetened stuff that comes in little packets, and recently been happy to branch out, inspired in part by memories of breakfast in Japan.
  - colanderman 3y ago
    Maybe it's a regional thing, but "breakfast cereal" is exclusive of "oatmeal" where I'm from (despite oats being a cereal grain). Breakfast cereal is crunchy and served cold, neither of which applies to oatmeal (even overnight oats are cold but not crunchy).
    - morsch 3y ago
      Why wouldn't you prepare and serve oatmeal cold?
      - nraf 3y ago
        Overnight oats / bircher muesli is served cold and requires no cooking. The time aspect is to give the oats time to absorb the liquid - cold oats swimming in freshly poured milk isn't the most appetising way to eat oats. Of course you can "speed up" the process by blending them into a smoothie.
      - colanderman 3y ago
        You can (overnight oats), but it's still not crunchy. If you toast the oats first to make them crunchy, it's no longer the dish called "oatmeal" (which is a porridge) but now it's a kind of granola, which can be used as a breakfast cereal.
- butler14 3y ago
  It contains protein and is low sugar (unless you cover it in honey and fruit everyday, but even then, at least you’d be getting some actual nutritional value)
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    I think the point was that oatmeal IS a cereal
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Oats are a cereal grain.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Oatmeal is cereal; and it comes in a range of sugariness, as does the kind of cereal intended to be eaten cold.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    I can't really tell what you were thinking here. Oatmeal is nutritionally identical to cereal for the obvious reason that that's what it is. Here's the nutrition sidebar for Quaker Oats rolled oats versus Cheerios: +---------+----------+ | Oatmeal | Cheerios | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Serving size | 40g | 39g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Calories | 150 | 140 | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Fat | 3g | 2.5g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Carbohydrate | 27g | 29g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | (sugar) | 1g | 2g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | (fiber) | 4g | 4g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Protein | 5g | 5g | +--------------+---------+----------+
    - BossingAround 3y ago
      Cereals are typically more processed than oatmeal (especially when we talk about uncut oat meal). If we talk about instant oatmeal vs cereal, then I don't know it matters a lot, sure.
- grendelt 3y ago
  It's literally a "cereal grain". It's found alongside the sugar pops, bran flakes, and cheertios on grocery aisles. YOU might not think it's an alternative, but it very much is a cereal.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > It’s literally a “cereal grain”. Right, its within the space of breakfast cereal, not an alternative to it.
  - cortesoft 3y ago
    I think that was the point... it isn't an alternative to cereal because it IS a cereal
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bowsamic 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - artursapek 3y ago
    It’s a pretty uptight bunch
- bregma 3y ago
  Oatmeal is not oatmeal. There's instant oatmeal. The kind that comes in packets and you just add water. Often has sugar added, often slathered with sugar. Possibly worse than a bowl of corn flakes. Highly processes with most of the starches and cellulose (fibre) reduced to simpler forms and readily and rapidly converted to glucose in the gut. High GI. Almost like candy. There's quick-cooking AKA minute oatmeal. Gelatinizes in 3 minutes on the stove or the microwave. Still processed so the starches are easily digestible (that was the point when it was invented). Slightly better than instant oatmeal and corn flakes but still mid-level GI and GL. Finally, there's oat meal. Steel-cut oats are just the seeds of the oat plant lightly crushed into large pieces. Not pre-cooked. Most palatable when cooked overnight. Very high in non-digestible fibre, mostly still complex starches that take considerable time to convert into glucose in your digestive system. Low GI. It's oat meal that is most associated with glucose and blood pressure control, not so much oatmeal. Rule of thumb: the longer it takes to prepare, the more it takes to digest and the better it is for you if you're concerned about a healthy diet. But the point is that oatmeal is not oatmeal, and discussing it as if it is is always going to be misleading.
  - michaeldh 3y ago
    I'm a type 1 diabetic and get to monitor my blood sugar level, and there's just not much difference in between these oatmeal styles when it comes to digesting the carbs.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    > Finally, there's oat meal. Steel-cut oats are just the seeds of the oat plant lightly crushed into large pieces. That's still "oatmeal". "Oat meal" would be a slightly odder way to say oat flour.
bettercallsalad 3y ago
As someone with chronic GERD, I am really interested to know your recipes, how many meals you take and your food preparation technique. Are these any cooking websites/channels you would recommend? In my university years, I used to eat whatever was cheap and available easy, the result was my GERD symptoms were so bad most nights I couldn’t get full night sleep. Over time I noticed some common triggers. Black pepper, garlic, raw tomato (weirdly cooked tomatoes don’t trigger as much symptoms), any citrus fruits, carbonated drinks to name a few. Mostly it was learning by suffering. I make conscious efforts now to avoid food with these triggers and manage the symptoms quite a bit when I am not traveling. But some nights still end up waking up with intense upper esophageal pain. Honestly over the years the sad truth I have now realized is fasting is sometimes better than consuming types of things now a day that we call food.
- chickenfeed 3y ago
  There's foods that trigger GERD for me, and I used to roll around the floor every night in agony, not knowing quite what was going on, as it was my norm. To fix late night issues, I just have to eat before 6pm. Chew properly. Soups kill me. And anything tomato sauced based is out. Also weirdly oatmeal can trigger issues for me. But I can get away with it in the morning. I think it's also a chewing issue. A huge amount of digestion happens in the mouth. So now I get my partner to pre-chew most of my foods for me.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    >So now I get my partner to pre-chew most of my foods for me. Umm... what's stopping you from chewing them yourself?
    - sergers 3y ago
      Umm yea sorry, can you explain the pre-chew food. Why not blend/mince the food if it's a digestion issue
      - 3y ago
hutzlibu 3y ago
"Hydration: I've noticed that I'm not so thirsty anymore, eating meals with so much vegetable matter, possibly because there's a lot of water in amongst the fiber and it gets freed up during digestion? " That's one reason. The other reason is, that the more sugar you eat, the more water you need.
- meristohm 3y ago
  That's a great point I hadn't considered; thanks! I'm getting better at not eating "just because" or based on what time of day it is or that I won't be able to eat for a few hours (trying out fasting a few times helped me be okay with going without- I'm not going to die that easily. Probably has roots in a stressful childhood where eating was an escape from family strife). Sugary foods are so easy to eat and a difficult treadmill to dismount. So far it's like a local maximum that's still too easy to roll off of but it feels so good up there when it all comes together.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Fasting is the most easy for me, when I am busy (preferable in nature on a hike). But when I am at home, surrounded by all kinds of food and kind of bored - then yeah, it can be hard.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

Oatmeal isn't exactly an alternative to cereal.

meristohm 3y ago
My point was I've eaten cereal most of my life, in the form of rolled oats or steel-cut oats (and now increasingly using oat groats), not the sweetened stuff that comes in little packets, and recently been happy to branch out, inspired in part by memories of breakfast in Japan.
- colanderman 3y ago
  Maybe it's a regional thing, but "breakfast cereal" is exclusive of "oatmeal" where I'm from (despite oats being a cereal grain). Breakfast cereal is crunchy and served cold, neither of which applies to oatmeal (even overnight oats are cold but not crunchy).
  - morsch 3y ago
    Why wouldn't you prepare and serve oatmeal cold?
    - nraf 3y ago
      Overnight oats / bircher muesli is served cold and requires no cooking. The time aspect is to give the oats time to absorb the liquid - cold oats swimming in freshly poured milk isn't the most appetising way to eat oats. Of course you can "speed up" the process by blending them into a smoothie.
    - colanderman 3y ago
      You can (overnight oats), but it's still not crunchy. If you toast the oats first to make them crunchy, it's no longer the dish called "oatmeal" (which is a porridge) but now it's a kind of granola, which can be used as a breakfast cereal.
butler14 3y ago
It contains protein and is low sugar (unless you cover it in honey and fruit everyday, but even then, at least you’d be getting some actual nutritional value)
- IggleSniggle 3y ago
  I think the point was that oatmeal IS a cereal
- TylerE 3y ago
  Oats are a cereal grain.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Oatmeal is cereal; and it comes in a range of sugariness, as does the kind of cereal intended to be eaten cold.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  I can't really tell what you were thinking here. Oatmeal is nutritionally identical to cereal for the obvious reason that that's what it is. Here's the nutrition sidebar for Quaker Oats rolled oats versus Cheerios: +---------+----------+ | Oatmeal | Cheerios | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Serving size | 40g | 39g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Calories | 150 | 140 | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Fat | 3g | 2.5g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Carbohydrate | 27g | 29g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | (sugar) | 1g | 2g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | (fiber) | 4g | 4g | +--------------+---------+----------+ | Protein | 5g | 5g | +--------------+---------+----------+
  - BossingAround 3y ago
    Cereals are typically more processed than oatmeal (especially when we talk about uncut oat meal). If we talk about instant oatmeal vs cereal, then I don't know it matters a lot, sure.
grendelt 3y ago
It's literally a "cereal grain". It's found alongside the sugar pops, bran flakes, and cheertios on grocery aisles. YOU might not think it's an alternative, but it very much is a cereal.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > It’s literally a “cereal grain”. Right, its within the space of breakfast cereal, not an alternative to it.
- cortesoft 3y ago
  I think that was the point... it isn't an alternative to cereal because it IS a cereal
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bowsamic 3y ago
[flagged]
- artursapek 3y ago
  It’s a pretty uptight bunch
bregma 3y ago
Oatmeal is not oatmeal. There's instant oatmeal. The kind that comes in packets and you just add water. Often has sugar added, often slathered with sugar. Possibly worse than a bowl of corn flakes. Highly processes with most of the starches and cellulose (fibre) reduced to simpler forms and readily and rapidly converted to glucose in the gut. High GI. Almost like candy. There's quick-cooking AKA minute oatmeal. Gelatinizes in 3 minutes on the stove or the microwave. Still processed so the starches are easily digestible (that was the point when it was invented). Slightly better than instant oatmeal and corn flakes but still mid-level GI and GL. Finally, there's oat meal. Steel-cut oats are just the seeds of the oat plant lightly crushed into large pieces. Not pre-cooked. Most palatable when cooked overnight. Very high in non-digestible fibre, mostly still complex starches that take considerable time to convert into glucose in your digestive system. Low GI. It's oat meal that is most associated with glucose and blood pressure control, not so much oatmeal. Rule of thumb: the longer it takes to prepare, the more it takes to digest and the better it is for you if you're concerned about a healthy diet. But the point is that oatmeal is not oatmeal, and discussing it as if it is is always going to be misleading.
- michaeldh 3y ago
  I'm a type 1 diabetic and get to monitor my blood sugar level, and there's just not much difference in between these oatmeal styles when it comes to digesting the carbs.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Finally, there's oat meal. Steel-cut oats are just the seeds of the oat plant lightly crushed into large pieces. That's still "oatmeal". "Oat meal" would be a slightly odder way to say oat flour.

bettercallsalad 3y ago

As someone with chronic GERD, I am really interested to know your recipes, how many meals you take and your food preparation technique. Are these any cooking websites/channels you would recommend? In my university years, I used to eat whatever was cheap and available easy, the result was my GERD symptoms were so bad most nights I couldn’t get full night sleep. Over time I noticed some common triggers. Black pepper, garlic, raw tomato (weirdly cooked tomatoes don’t trigger as much symptoms), any citrus fruits, carbonated drinks to name a few. Mostly it was learning by suffering. I make conscious efforts now to avoid food with these triggers and manage the symptoms quite a bit when I am not traveling. But some nights still end up waking up with intense upper esophageal pain. Honestly over the years the sad truth I have now realized is fasting is sometimes better than consuming types of things now a day that we call food.

chickenfeed 3y ago
There's foods that trigger GERD for me, and I used to roll around the floor every night in agony, not knowing quite what was going on, as it was my norm. To fix late night issues, I just have to eat before 6pm. Chew properly. Soups kill me. And anything tomato sauced based is out. Also weirdly oatmeal can trigger issues for me. But I can get away with it in the morning. I think it's also a chewing issue. A huge amount of digestion happens in the mouth. So now I get my partner to pre-chew most of my foods for me.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  >So now I get my partner to pre-chew most of my foods for me. Umm... what's stopping you from chewing them yourself?
  - sergers 3y ago
    Umm yea sorry, can you explain the pre-chew food. Why not blend/mince the food if it's a digestion issue
    - 3y ago

hutzlibu 3y ago

"Hydration: I've noticed that I'm not so thirsty anymore, eating meals with so much vegetable matter, possibly because there's a lot of water in amongst the fiber and it gets freed up during digestion? " That's one reason. The other reason is, that the more sugar you eat, the more water you need.

meristohm 3y ago
That's a great point I hadn't considered; thanks! I'm getting better at not eating "just because" or based on what time of day it is or that I won't be able to eat for a few hours (trying out fasting a few times helped me be okay with going without- I'm not going to die that easily. Probably has roots in a stressful childhood where eating was an escape from family strife). Sugary foods are so easy to eat and a difficult treadmill to dismount. So far it's like a local maximum that's still too easy to roll off of but it feels so good up there when it all comes together.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Fasting is the most easy for me, when I am busy (preferable in nature on a hike). But when I am at home, surrounded by all kinds of food and kind of bored - then yeah, it can be hard.