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Physical FitnessDoes grinding oatmeal affect any of its properties or make it digest faster?
[+2] [2] nivlam
[2011-03-01 23:32:39]
[ nutrition food ]
[ http://fitness.stackexchange.com/questions/162] [DELETED]

I hate eating oatmeal, but it has always been hailed as a great complex carbohydrate. I usually blend my oatmeal until it's a fine powder and mix it with my protein shake.

Will grinding or blending oatmeal in a blender affect any of it's properties? Will grinding oatmeal make it digest faster?

Maybe try adding stuff: fresh apples (which can replace sugar as sweetener), raisins (likewise), cinnamon and/or pumpkin pie spice, nuts, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, bran, small amounts of different grains (adding millet or wheat berries makes for some nice chunky bits), and anything else you would find in granola or granola bars. Oatmeal is actually just about my favourite thing to eat. With the apples and raisins (and non-oat grains) I let them boil for a while before adding the oats: this lets the apples spread sweetness into the water, lets the raisins plump up, and cooks the grains. - intuited
[+3] [2011-03-01 23:49:36] Greg

Yes, the finer you grind oatmeal (or any grain) the faster it will be digested. It's a matter of surface area: grinding means smaller pieces of oat which have more area exposed to your digestive juices, and so it will be digested faster.


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[+3] [2011-03-02 00:51:09] Tangurena

Will grinding oatmeal make it digest faster?

Yes.

Will grinding or blending oatmeal in a blender affect any of it's properties?

Not really. The primary beneficial properties are the types of fibre in oatmeals. Generally, the fibre in oatmeal get entangled with bile salts and drags them out the butt. Bile salts, such as lithocholic acid [1], are used to metabolize fats, and are made out of cholesterol. Oatmeal works at lowering cholersterol levels by tangling up substances (that the liver would turn right back into cholesterol) and dragging them out your pooper.

There are 2 ways of making oatmeal for breakfasts. My parents loved the runny style, which was thin, and usually had lots of milk/butter added - you could have sucked it up a straw. I was an adult before I found that I liked oatmeal thick and lumpy (thick enough to eat with a fork). Your dislike for oatmeal might be that you didn't find the way you like it - or you might just hate it (which is also OK).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithocholic_acid

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