In the previous blog "What’s the difference between oatmeal and cereal?" we introduced the differences between oat flakes and wheat flakes which we believe you all know now. However, when you walk down the cereal aisle in supermarkets, you’ll still find a wide range of oatmeal products. Are they the same?
Today we’ll compare briefly some categories of oatmeal currently popular on the market.
Plain oatmeal
Plain oatmeal as its name implies is oatmeal that has only oat flakes and no other ingredients. It is the most commonly seen category in the market. Plain oatmeal is flat in shape with a slight tint of yellow for it is oats rolled into flakes. Oat flakes are steamed under high temperature so consumers can simply boil or microwave them for a couple of minutes before eating. Or they can be eaten without cooking at all.
In terms of nutrition of the oatmeal alone, compared with other kinds of oatmeal, plain oatmeal ranks first in nutrition level for two reasons. First is the simple processing. Oats are simply rolled into flakes and thus most of the nutrients, especially the various minerals and vitamins, are kept in. Second is that plain oatmeal has no added sugar, so there are no extra calories.
Compared with other kinds of flavored oatmeal , plain oatmeal may taste a bit boring. However, you can freely customize the plain oatmeal according to you taste every day. If you have no clue whatsoever how to cook plain oatmeal, please visit Myllyn Paras website oatmeal recipe page to get inspired and get started!
Muesli
Muesli is originally from Europe and is quite trendy now in China. It normally does not contain additives but some dried fruits. It tastes good and is healthy and easy to cook. The price of course is also much higher than normal oatmeal Here we take one example of the oatmeal price with the average weight of 1 kg in JD, the local plain oatmeal price is 20 yuan, the imported oatmeal price is 40 yuan, while the muesli price is 50 yuan.
Further processing of muesli leads to a certain amount of nutrient loss such as vitamins so muesli is not as nutritious as plain oatmeal.
Oatmeal with milk powder
This kind might be appealing to the elder. Milk flavor oatmeal tastes sweet because besides skim milk powder, it also has sugar, flavor essence and other additives which to some extent lower oatmeal’s health qualities. Milk flavored oatmeal is actually not recommended for seniors because sugar can increase levels of blood sugar and creamer is bad for cardiovascular system.
Other mixed oatmeal
There are some other kinds of oatmeal in the market such as walnut oatmeal, purple sweet potato and taro oatmeal, black rice and sesame oatmeal and so on. These as a whole are similar to milk oatmeal that is inferior in nutrition level in terms of the oatmeal alone resulted from the additives and other artificial ingredients mixed in in order to improve taste compared with plain oatmeal and muesli.
So far you must have a general idea the differences of all these oatmeal categories sold on the shelf. They all have oats as the main ingredient and some put more things in to enrich flavor and improve taste. All in all, they are quite healthy food and you can choose what is best for you.
Finally, we make a chart to compare these products for your reference.
Oatmeal | Oats Nutrition | Oat flavor | Oats price | Cooking index |
Plain oatmeal | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 |
Muesli | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
Oatmeal with milk powder | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
Other mixed oatmeal | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
- 1 is worst, 5 is best