In George Petire's blog about oatmeal, he discussed the differences between "real" oatmeal and the new "instant" packs that Quaker Oats now distributes. The original oats version's ingredients list is short: "100% NATURAL WHOLE GRAIN QUAKER QUALITY ROLLED OATS." The new instant packets, Petrie says, have a list that is much longer, touting almost twenty ingredients. While the instant version does have "a significant amount of essential vitamins and minerals," Petrie says, these vitamins and minerals are not naturally found in the food itself, but is sprayed on to the food. Most of these vitamins and minerals evaporate with the water when they are cooked, however, which means the cooked version of instant oatmeal actually contains less than half the nutritional value that's claimed on the nutritional facts.
While it seems that it's obvious to Petrie that the original rolled oats are much better than the new "instant" version (both in taste and nutrition content), he claims that he'll probably bite the bullet and keep on eating the instant version due to a lack of resources in the college dorms for cooking the original oats.
While I understand the problems often arise with trying to eat healthily while living in the dorms, I think I'd like to challenge him, on his statement that he can't cook the rolled oats in the in his dorms. I don't currently own a microwave (that's a story for another post), I have cooked old-fashioned oats in a microwave in the past. Although it takes a little longer, "Old Fashioned" oats can be cooked in the microwave, cooking the oats with milk, adding a few chopped nuts and dried fruit to the cooked product would "up" the nutritional value of the old-fashioned oats even more over the instant variety. Although it's sometimes more challenging to eat well in the dorms, it's not as impossible as it might seem.
*Photo taken from iowaavenue.ning.com
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