The recently published “Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents” suggests an intake of 50-150g whole grains is necessary for average Chinses adults. The reality is, however, they have only less than 15g daily intake and 80% of them suffer from whole grain deficiency. Whole grains are grain products such as oats, rice and corns and are important sources of mineral substance, protein and dietary fiber.
Many of you must have noticed this issue and began to buy and eat more whole grain products. These products are also taking over the supermarkets’ shelves. Among them oatmeal and cereal stand out. people may think they are the same but as a matter of fact they differ greatly from each other. Today we’ll tell you the difference between oatmeal and cereal.
Oatmeal
Oats (yan mai or you mai in some regions of China) is a kind of grain low in sugar and high in nutrition and dietary fiber. Content of dietary fiber in oats are 3.5 times higher than that of wheat, 10 of rice and 7.7 of corn of the same amount. As is known to all, dietary fiber improves digestion and bowel movement and can effectively curb high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and even cancer. Oatmeal is oats rolled into flakes. In American Times magazine’s list of ten most healthy foods, oat ranks the 5th. Most oatmeal products currently on the market are added with creamer, granulated sugar, fragrance and other additives to improve flavor, which may reduce its nutritional value.
Cereal however is a mixture of different grains including wheat, rice, corn and oat. Oat content counts only a small percentage or even zero in cereal.
So you can tell that the nutrition value of oatmeal is much higher than cereal. Next time when you go to a supermarket, make sure to check the name and description of the product or read the nutrition information chart to tell whether it’s oatmeal or cereal.
However, some manufacturers pass cereal off as oatmeal. How could customers separate the sheep from the goats? Here we’ll teach you a few methods.
Observe
Pure oatmeal is rolled oat flakes that are full in shape and flat with a slight tinge of yellow in color. Instant oatmeal flakes are smaller but you can still tell the original shapes. By contrast, cereal is various in shape and color caused by mixing various grain flakes. Finnish oat flakes in particular are not like oat flakes in other countries. They are large in kernel, light in color and has a pleasant aroma that is faint yet refreshing. The special geological location and pure nature are the reasons why Finnish oats deserve to be crowned as the best oats in the world. You can click here to read our previous blog introducing Finnish oats.
Boil
If you cannot tell the difference from the appearance, then we still have a trump card to play: to boil the product. After boiling, oatmeal is thick and cereal is thin. This is mainly because oatmeal has Beta glucan. Don’t look down upon this component for it contributes a big part of why oatmeal is such a healthy product. Dietary fiber in oatmeal contains a large amount of Beta glucan. The thicker the oatmeal gets, the more Beta glucan it contains and the healthier it is for your body.
Now you know how to differentiate between oatmeal and cereal, right?