Comment by umvi
4 hours ago
Unfortunately as a diabetic, oatmeal is one of the most difficult foods to control. I question how healthy it is given how high and how fast my blood sugar spikes after eating some. Oats are converted to glucose very quickly it seems, and that's without all the added sugar OP recommends. I won't dispute that it's delicious though.
Are we talking of steel-cut oats here? The glycemic index for steel-cut oats is moderate. Instant oats, on the other hand, raise your blood glucose very rapidly.
When using a continuous glucose monitor I found that oatmeal would spike my glucose except when I would add protein powder and chia seeds.
Oats are already one of the most protein dense foods
Oats are about 15% calories from protein, 85% from carbs.
High protein foods would be: egg white (90% calories from protein), chicken breast (80%), lean fish such as cod (90%)
medium protein foods would be: fatty beef (e.g. ribeye) 50% calories from protein, cottage cheese (60%), fatty fish like salmon (55% calories from protein), whole eggs (fatty yolk plus white, 36% calories from protein), soybeans (36-40%)
low protein foods would be: lentils (30%), 2% milk (26% calories from protein), lima beans (22% protein), parmesan cheese (30%), summer squash/zuccini (24% protein), most mushrooms (25-30%).
very-low protein foods would be: rice (9%), onions (9%), winter squash (10%), red bell peppers (12-13%), sweet corn (12%)
Here, by very low, I mean if you try to get your protein from these sources, you will end up obese unless you expend extreme amounts of energy exercising or maintain serious protein deficiencies (muscle loss). You can get decent amount of protein if you are downing lentils, whole milk, parmesan, soybeans, salmon, etc, e.g. you don't need to eat high protein foods, but this is about the bottom level to get reasonable protein while maintaining reasonable weight unless you are a day laborer or expending massive calories.
At only 15% calories from protein (the rest being carbs), oats would be not much better than corn in terms of protein content per calorie consumed. Nothing wrong with eating some corn on the cob, but that's not gonna be a major source of protein for anyone unless you are willing to consume huge amounts of carbs.
If you wouldn’t mind indulging me, I’m very curious how you came to be of that opinion
Steel cut oats or groats solves this problem.
Use thicker oats. Do not add sugar or any sweet milk. Also, if you sprinkle ceylon cinnamon and fenugreek powders, the impact will be less. For more effect, I used to microwave it in black tea instead of water.
Heating and then cooling oatmeal should allow it to form some resistant starch of type RS3. This will spike glucose a little less, but it causes much more gas.
Other effective hacks are gymnema, berberine, thiamine, and benfotiamine supplements, all of which help with glucose regulation.
Acacia fiber powder in oatmeal could be a worthy hack too, but I have yet to try it.
I used oatmeal with water and it has always spiked - every body is different. How much less did it spike when you used fenugreek ? What other blood sugar spike hack do you use? Others that I know of — frozen bread changes starch, or extra virgin oil and almond butter are high in oleic acid so with the right amount it won’t spike as much
It should look something like this.
https://www.runningwithspoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06...
Or Quaker rolled oats, that's probably fine too.