Is Cereal or Oatmeal Better for Breakfast?

Beyond the nutritional content or composition, the structure of food has a notable impact.

The structure of food, not just the nutrient composition, can be “critical for optimal health.” As you can see in the graphic below and at 0:12 in my video Setback Friday: Which is better breakfast: cereal or oatmeal?corn flakes and rice products cause a much larger spike in blood sugar than rice or corn on the cob, but it’s not just from the added sugar.

“Even with identical chemistry [the same ingredients], food structure can make a big difference in biological and health outcomes.” For example, if you compare the absorption of fat from peanuts compared to exactly the same amount of ground peanuts into peanut butter, you flush more than twice the amount of fat down the toilet when you eat the peanuts. Because? Because no matter how well you chew, little pieces of peanuts trap some of that oil from reaching the colon, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:35 in my videoand the physical form of food not only alters fat absorption, but also alters carbohydrate absorption, too.

For example, rolled oats have a significantly lower glycemic index than instant oats, which is just thinner rolled oats and rolled oats. cause lower spikes in blood sugar and insulin than powdered oats. They all have the same single ingredient, oats, but in different forms and can have different effects, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:02 on my video.

Why do we care? Excessively rapid absorption of carbohydrates after eating a high glycemic index meal can trigger “a sequence of hormonal and metabolic changes” that can promote overeating. The researchers fed a dozen obese adolescents different meals, each with the same number of calories, and followed them for the next five hours to measure their subsequent food consumption. Those who ate instant oats ate 53 percent more than they did after eating the same number of calories from steel-cut oats. The instant oatmeal group snacked an hour after their meal and packed on significantly more calories for the rest of the day, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:41 in my video. They ate the same food but in a different form, with different effects.

instant oats it’s not as bad as some breakfast cereals, however, that can climb into the 80s or 90s on the glycemic index, even unsweetened cereals like shredded wheat. The new industrial methods used to create breakfast cereals, such as extrusion cooking and explosive puffing, speed up starch digestion and absorption, causing an exaggerated blood sugar response, whether or not they have added sugar. shredded wheat has the same ingredients as spaghetti, only wheat, but it has double the glycemic index.

As you can see in the graph below and at 2:23 on my videoWhen you eat spaghetti, you get a mild rise in blood sugar. However, if you eat the exact same ingredients in bread form, all the little bubbles in the bread allow your body to break it down more quickly, so you get a huge spike in blood sugar levels, making your body overreacts. an exaggerated spike in insulin, and that ends up causing our blood sugar levels to drop below fasting levels, which can lead to hunger. Experimentally, infuse someone on insulin so their blood sugar drops can make their hunger rise; In particular, your cravings for high-calorie foods can spike. In summary, foods with a lower glycemic index may aid one feels fuller for longer than equivalent higher glycemic foods.

researchers random people in one of three breakfast conditions: oatmeal made with quick oats, the same number of calories from cornflakes, or just water, and then measured how much they ate for lunch three hours later. As you can see in the graph below and at 3:17 on my videonot only the ones ate oatmeal feel significantly fuller and less hungry, they also ate significantly less lunch. After eating oatmeal for breakfast, the overweight participants ate less than half the calories at lunch — hundreds and hundreds fewer calories. In fact, the breakfast cereal was so unsatisfying that the cornflakes group ate as much as the water-only group. It’s as if the cereal group hadn’t had any breakfast at all.

If you feed Honey Nut Cheerios people felt significantly less full, less satisfied and hungrier hours later than those who had been fed the same amount of oatmeal calories. Although both breakfasts were oat-based, the higher glycemic index, reduced intact starch, and reduced intact fiber in the Cheerios appeared to have conspired to decrease appetite control. The test was funded by the Pepsi Corporation, makers of Quaker oats, pitted against rival General Mills’ Cheerios. An industry-funded exposé on study rigging later revealed that the study originally included another arm, Quaker Oatmeal Squares. “I’m sorry the oat squares didn’t work as well as expected,” the researcher told Pepsi, which decided to publish only the results on his oats.

In case you missed my previous video on cereal, check it out Flashback Friday: The worst food for tooth decay. It’s amazing how the same product can have such different effects on the body depending on how it was processed. Whole grains are better than refined ones, but the most integral ones? Intact kernels. Instant oats are better than powdered oats, rolled oats are better than instant, steel cut oats are better than rolled, and whole oats are best.

Watch this cooking video of me morning cereal bowl from the Cookbook How not to die.