Healthy Preacher Oats

The chocolate version has been a favorite of my family for as long as I can remember.

You could probably make it even healthier by cutting the sugar by half, or possibly more, with stevia.

 

Hm hm grits, hot, slathered with butter.

 

I tried some grits down in Georgia. It reminded me of a dog coming back to eat its own vomit. The texture and flavor was similar to wet sawdust.

 

It may be wiser not to apply such descriptions (boldfaced) to oneself. Someone may pick up on it and run with it. Just sayin'.

 

That is how grits tasted. They were about as awful as a pile of vomit. Perhaps the person in Georgia was just a bad cook or forgot an important ingredient to make them palatable, but the grits I had were awful. Far worse than oatmeal or (shudder) "malt-o-meal."

 

It's corn, probably not as nutritious as oats for humans, especially if it's not nixtamalized.

Nixtamalization Of Corn: Ancient Secret Of The Americas – man & bran's veggie kitchen (spanishyogaretreat.com)

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"...Pellagra can be common in people who obtain most of their food energy from corn, notably rural South America, where maize is a staple food. If maize is not nixtamalized, it is a poor source of tryptophan, as well as niacin. Nixtamalization corrects the niacin deficiency, and is a common practice in Native American cultures that grow corn, but most especially in Mexico and the countries of Central America. Following the corn cycle, the symptoms usually appear during spring, increase in the summer due to greater sun exposure, and return the following spring. Indeed, pellagra was once endemic in the poorer states of the U.S. South, such as Mississippi and Alabama, where its cyclical appearance in the spring after meat-heavy winter diets led to it being known as "spring sickness" (particularly when it appeared among more vulnerable children), as well as among the residents of jails and orphanages as studied by Dr. Joseph Goldberger.[13]..."

"...Native American cultivators who first domesticated corn (maize) prepared it by nixtamalization, in which the grain is treated with a solution of alkali such as lime. Nixtamalization makes the niacin nutritionally available and prevents pellagra.[22] When maize was cultivated worldwide, and eaten as a staple without nixtamalization, pellagra became common...."
Pellagra - Wikipedia

 

Pellagra and Spartanburg’s role in a cure | Discover Health

 

OK, but who's the dog eating that vomit? Looks like the same one describing the experience.

 

25 Reasons why butter is a Superfood:

Nutrient Dense: When you’re eating butter, you’re eating something rich in beneficial bio-active compounds, and fatty acids. Unlike other foods that only have a few beneficial ingredients, butter is packed with nutrients. Butter is nutrient dense, and full of Vitamin A, E, D, K, antioxidants, minerals including selenium, manganese, chromium, zinc, copper, Cholesterol, Fatty acids like Conjugated linoleic acid, butyric acid, arachidonic acid (brain function and healthy cell membranes, Lauric acid, short and medium chain fatty acids in the perfect omega 3 to omega 6 balance, lecithin (metabolic health), Iodine in a highly absorbable form, glycosphingolipids (protects against gut infections)

Improves your Cholesterol: We’ve all heard that butter is bad for your cholesterol, but it’s just not true. Butter helps increase levels of HDL (the good cholesterol), and actually changes the LDL (bad cholesterol) from small and dense to large LDL. Both of these factors actually reduce your risk for heart disease.

Vitamin Absorption: Milk fat helps your body absorb fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin A, and other fat soluble vitamins. If you take fat soluble vitamins without any fat, they won’t be absorbed by your body. You need fat in order to digest these kinds of vitamins. So go ahead and add butter to your vegetables, it’s a requirement for vitamin absorption.

Brain food: Butter is a real brain food. Butter is abundant in DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, which is a primary structural component of the human brain. Also full of Arachidonic acid which is the most abundant fatty acid in the brain which helps to maintain hippocampal cell membrane fluidity, and protect the brain from oxidative stress. Butter is literally fuel for your brain.

Helps you stay full: Butter helps you stay full longer. This of course leads to less snacking throughout the day, and eating less of those empty calories. (For this reason, butter can actually help you eat less sugar and carbohydrates which increase your risk for health problems like obesity and heart disease).

Doesn’t clog your arteries: In fact, it’s entirely untrue that saturated fats clog your arteries. 74% of the fats found in artery clogs are unsaturated (of which 41% are polyunsaturated fats i.e. canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil.) (Source)

Butter is a Natural Fat: Butter is a natural fat. Unlike vegetable oils (which are processed), butter fat is produced by nature and built for digestion and nutrient distribution. And while we aren’t of the bovine breed, we are humans which are essentially mammals. And as mammals, we have been designed to take advantage of this nutrient transference in milk and dairy.

Good for your cells: Butter and other saturated fats are a vital part of cell membranes, giving them stiffness and integrity necessary for proper function. (Source)

Good for your bones: Butter helps increase calcium absorption. Fat soluble vitamins like A and D are essential to help you effectively incorporate more calcium and other minerals into your body’s skeletal structure.

Strong Immune System: Interestingly, by allowing the adsorption of more fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin A, butter contributes to a strong, healthy immune system. The short and medium chain fatty acids present in butter have immune system strengthening properties which helps keep you healthy.

Anti-arthritis/ Anti-stiffening: Dutch researcher Wulzen found that butter can help protect against calcification of the joints (degenerative arthritis) as well as hardening of the arteries, and cataracts. Surprisingly he also found that butter helps prevent the calcification of the pineal gland. (Source)

Healthy Bodyweight: Butter doesn’t make you fat. Your body doesn’t store butter as fat in your body. The short and medium chain fatty acids in butter are not stored in the adipose tissue, but are used for quick energy. Fat tissue in humans is composed mainly of longer chain fatty acids which come from olive oil and other polyunsaturated oils, as well as from refined carbohydrates. Butter helps hormone regulation which contributes to healthier bodyweight. (Source)

Makes your kids beautiful/ handsome: If your want your kids to be awesome, feed them butter. Kids will grow better on butter. In fact, vitamin A is a necessary component to the healthy growth of children. People who’ve been deprived of proper amounts of vitamin A (fat soluble vitamin in butter) during gestation tend to have narrow faces and skeletal structure, small palates and crowded teeth. Extreme deficiencies result in blindness, skeletal problems and other birth defects.People who’ve gotten optimal vitamin A from the time of conception have broad handsome faces, strong straight teeth, and excellent bone structure. (Source)

Your Heart runs on Fat: Eating butter is healthy for your heart. Butter is the very fuel your heart needs to operate. Unlike other muscles in your body, the heart doesn’t run on glucose. Instead the heart is fueled entirely by fatty acids like those in butter….. Butter: It fuels your heart.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid: Butter is the best single source of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), a fatty acid which has been shown to be linked to good health and weight management. This fatty acid is anti-cancer, anti-heart disease, and anti-body fat. When CLA was fed to rats, it prevented tumor growth from developing.

Butyric Acid: The best source of Butyric acid is butter. Butter has high amount of this short-chain fatty acid. Butyric acid is anti-carcinogenic, and also helps prevent certain types of cancer. It’s anti-inflammatory, helps stimulate the body’s immune response, protects against mental illness, increases the body’s metabolism, and reduces the effects of type-1 diabetes.

Oleic Acid: Butter is also a great source of Oleic acid. This fatty acid helps increase HDL cholesterol (the good one) and lowering LDL cholesterol (the bad one).

Milk Fat Globule Membrane: milk fat (aka butter) is surrounded by a structure called the milk fat globule membrane. Think the bubble membrane that surrounds and encases the fat in milk. This membrane is present in milk, and researchers are only beginning to discover the numerous beneficial bio-active compounds. Many of the compounds are anti-viral and anti-microbial in nature. (Source)

Protects your Gut: Butter contains a compound called glycosphingolipids which is a special type of fatty acids that protect against gastro-intestinal infections, especially in the very young and the elderly. Interestingly, children who drink skim milk have diarrhea at 3 to 5 times more than children who drink whole milk. The cholesterol in butterfat promotes health of the intestinal wall and protects against cancer of the colon. Short and medium chain fatty acids protect against pathogens, and have strong anti-fungal effects. Butter has also been shown to play a significant role in the treatment of candida overgrowth. (Source)

Anti–Cancer: Many of the fatty acids in butter are anti-cancer. Much research has been done proving that the fatty acids in butter help reduce tumor growth. Interestingly, when butter consumption was highest in the U.S., incidents of cancer were non-existent. (Source)

Anti-Heart Disease: Butter consumption is linked to lower incidents of heart disease. Countries where people eat diets high in butter have lower incidents of heart disease than countries eating small amounts of butter. Being that many of the fatty-acids in butter improve Cholesterol, this fact should not be surprising. In fact, many cardiologists have confirmed that butter is not what’s causing heart disease. (Source)**Countries with high saturated fat diets (i.e. butter) have less incidents of heart disease than countries that eat less saturated fats** (Source)

Good for your Hormones: Butter contributes to healthy regulation of your body’s hormones.

Male Health: Butters been proven to increase levels of testosterone in men. An increase in testosterone leads to increased ability to build muscle, and more awesomeness as a guy.

Female Health: Studies have shown that women who consumed more dairy fat had less PMS symptoms and fertility issues than women who ate less. Cholesterol is necessary for building progesterone, which is commonly deficient in women who suffer from PMS and other hormone imbalances.

Makes everything taste great: (common knowledge)

25 Reasons Butter is a Superfood | Dairy Moos

 

Oatmeal was never my favorite (although the addition of bacon with it is a huge improvement), it just never did 'stick with me' very long. I was hungry again by midmorning.

I was recently introduced to 'overnight oats' by a college student that waitresses at my daughter's deli when Dad became diabetic, and I had to make adjustments to his diet. He didn't care much for them, but I found them to be delicious and much preferred them to the hot cooked variety,

I always sweeten with stevia.