Ready for breakfast: crunchy, textured oatmeal topped with brown sugar. Photography by Claire Freierman. WHAT IT IS: “Gourmet” oatmeal. WHY IT’S DIFFERENT: A blend of oatmeal and six other whole grains creates great texture and flavor—a world apart from Quaker Oats and other brands. WHY WE LOVE IT: The texture and the taste— Cranberry Almond Oatmeal, for example, is not redolent of cherries and almonds. There’s just a nice, subtle touch. WHERE TO BUY IT: HollysOatmeal.com		Holly’s Oatmeal: Perfect Porridge CAPSULE REPORT: Some foods are thought of as commodities—they all taste pretty much the same, most people think, so it doesn’t matter what brand you buy. Of course, there are big differences in everything, from water to cider vinegar to mustard. That’s why we were so happy to come across Holly’s Oatmeal, which has replaced the other oatmeals in our pantry (conveniently during February, National Oatmeal Month). Those people who are always looking for the next tastiest oatmeal will rush to try it. Those who just feel so-so about oatmeal but eat it for its heart-healthy and whole-grain benefits (it’s a good fiber food) will want to see what “gourmet” oatmeal tastes like. We eat lots of oatmeal and rolled oats—from the ubiquitous Quaker Oats to imports like McCann’s Irish Oatmeal to products found in the health food aisles. It’s comfort food for us, and with our first bite of Holly’s, oatmeal became even more comforting—flavorful and firm-textured. The secret is the addition of other whole grains to the oats. There are currently three varieties: two with antioxidant add-ins (Cranberry Almond and Goji Berry) and Gluten-Free. The packaging is so cute, you can give oatmeal gifts. If your mother made you eat oatmeal and you didn’t like the mush, try Holly’s. Read the full review below to learn more, including how you can eat healthier and happier, plus the difference between crushed oats, rolled oats and steel-cut oats. Read reviews of more of our favorite cereals and grains. See the Table of Contents of the February issue of THE NIBBLE, plus the back issues archive and our most popular articles. All of the Top Pick Of The Week newsletters are permanently archived on TheNibble.com, in chronological order and by product category.

Enjoy More Whole Grain Foods

The New Whole Grains Cookbook: Terrific Recipes Using Farro, Quinoa, Brown Rice, Barley, and Many Others, by Robin Asbell. “No grain is left unturned” in this recipe book, which covers everything from breakfast to dessert. Click here for more information or to purchase.	Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, by Lorna Sass. A thorough primer on whole grains, including detailed profiles and simple cooking instructions for each. Great recipes for soups and salads, main courses, side dishes, breakfast foods and desserts. Click here for more information or to purchase.	King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains, by King Arthur Flour. The manufacturers of fine flours have assembled 400 tempting, delicious and foolproof recipes with detailed nutritional information. Click here for more information or to purchase.

Holly’s Oatmeals: Perfect Porridge

Introduction

Oatmeal is a porridge made of coarsely-ground, unsifted oats. Porridge, in case you read through all of those childhood fairy tales without a true understanding of the word, is a soft food made of oatmeal, or other cereals, boiled to a thick consistency in water or milk. Gruel, a word well-known to those readers of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, is a thin, watery porridge fed to those not affluent or deserving enough for the good stuff.

Early in our language, “porridge” referred to a soup of meat and vegetables, from the Middle English porreie (which derived from Old French poree, leek soup, via the Latin porrum, leek). The first record we have that associates porridge with oatmeal is a Scottish reference from 1643. Scotland was a big oat-growing country—the climate favors oats over corn and wheat. Since then, oatmeal has become a favorite breakfast food in the United Kingdom and the United States, although only one in five Americans eat it, according to the NPD Group, an independent research firm. Athletes and diabetics eat oatmeal for its high content of complex carbohydrates and fiber, which abet slow digestion and stable blood-glucose levels. The baby boomer population should be eating more of it—for its whole-grain fiber and heart-healthy ability to reduce cholesterol. Kids should eat it instead of less-nutritious breakfast cereals or childhood-obesity-inducing breakfast pastries. Oatmeal, warm and comforting, can be dressed up in so many ways (see our chart, below).

Yet despite all of these developments, the proportion of Americans who eat oatmeal for breakfast has not changed in 20 years. Holly DiMauro, creator of Holly’s Oatmeal, is attempting to change the tide a bit, by creating oatmeal products that are both tastier and more fun.

Types Of Oats After harvest, the hull is removed from the oats and the groats (kernels) are toasted to stabilize enzymes that cause rancidity. Then, they are variously coarsely ground into meal (crushed oats), steamed and rolled on steel or stone rollers to make rolled oats or cut into small pieces to make steel-cut oats. While the whole oat groats can be purchased, and are more nutritious because they are minimally processed, they require a long time to cook and are very chewy—not the soft food that we know as oatmeal. The longer you cook oats, the more texture and flavor they have. The longest-cooking are steel-cut oats, then rolled oats, then quick oats, then instant oats. Crushed Oats Crushed oats are groats that are lightly ground in a hammer mill, creating a meal-type product. It’s unusual to find them in U.S. markets. Boiling crushed oats creates a porridge with a farina texture. Uncooked, crushed oats are also a favorite food of the equine and bovine populations (only 5% of the oats grown in the world are consumed by humans). Crushed oats are also used in oatmeal-based health and beauty aids.

At harvest, the grains are removed from the husks and toasted, creating the whole oat kernels known as groats. The toasted oats retain much of the nutritional value of the raw grain. Photo by Christophe Libert | IST.

Rolled Oats

Rolled oats are what most Americans think of as oatmeal. It is a whole grain food, an excellent source of niacin, riboflavin and iron, and helps to bolster energy levels. Quaker Oats’ standard product is called Old Fashioned Oats, a term used by other companies as well for their standard rolled oat product. Standard rolled oats are also known as flaked oats and oat flakes: the groats are steamed and then rolled and flaked. The calibration of the rollers produces a spectrum of products, including instant oats, quick oats, rolled oats/old-fashioned oats and thick-rolled oats. The thinner the oats are rolled, the more surface area, the quicker they cook. The thinner the flake, the quicker the oats cook because of the greater surface area of the grain. Rolled oats cook in five minutes.

Instant Oats

If you don’t have time or facility to cook, instant oatmeal is made from oats that are rolled very thin and precooked, then dehydrated. They are generally packaged in single-serve packets and need only be mixed with a hot liquid to plump up into oatmeal. While you can’t beat the convenience, they lack the texture and flavor of cooked oats (although the nutrition is about the same, and some brands like Quaker enrich their product with extra vitamins and/or calcium). We like keeping boxes of these in our desk drawer at work, for a healthier breakfast than a bagel or other workplace option, and a nutritious snack anytime of the day or night. They cook “instantly” when boiling water or milk is added; or can be cooked in the microwave with cold water for 90 seconds.

Quick Oats

Quick oats are rolled oats that are thicker and thus chewier than instant oats, but not as thick as regular rolled oats. They cook in one minute.

Steel-Cut Oats

Oatmeal imported from Ireland and Scotland tends to be steel-cut oats. Steel cut oats are also called cut oats, Irish or Scottish Oats and coarse-cut oats. The groats have been cut into very small pieces, not rolled into flakes. Cooking time is considerably longer than for rolled oats—30 minutes—but the cooked oatmeal has a nice texture to it—it’s more al dente than rolled oats.

Holly’s Oatmeal Varieties

Holly DiMauro is a chef and restaurateur who developed her original recipe for friends and family. When she served it at her Connecticut restaurant, it became the most-requested item on the menu. As so happens in the specialty food business, people wanted to buy the oatmeal mix, so Holly sold the restaurant to focus on marketing the product and proving that just because a food is high-fiber and low-fat doesn’t mean it can’t taste great. As she notes, even the most cherished recipes can always be improved, as a taste of her “improved” oatmeal proves. There’s texture and flavor not found in commercial rolled oats, that makes the oatmeal both chewy and creamy (and more kid-friendly, since kids prefer chewy to mushy).

There’s a lot more to commend Holly’s:

The grains themselves are the best money can buy, from Bob’s Red Mill, one of the finest grain purveyors in the country; they're also organic- and kosher-certified. Holly’s is working on certifying the products down the road, but for now, they are “all natural.” Everything is hand mixed, to keep the grains from being crushed. You can see the different grains of the mix. The cooked cereal is never gluey, like some other all-natural cereals. A special blending of six other whole grains in addition to the oats, and cooking process—she recommends cooking it in soy milk, although we used fat-free cow’s milk. The blend of grains provides the heartier taste and texture. More protein than any other oatmeal (9 grams vs. 4 grams in regular rolled and steel-cut oats) and soluble fiber (4 grams vs. 1 gram). The 38 grams of whole grain in one 1/2 cup portion are almost the daily required 48 grams. There’s no salt, no saturated fat, no trans fat and no cholesterol.

Who’s more fun: Holly (shown cooking up some oatmeal, above) or that old Quaker dude?

Cooking

Cooking in milk or soymilk instead of water makes the oatmeal more creamy and nutritious, but adds the milk calories. Skim milk makes it just as creamy as whole milk—so save the calories and fat. The porridge cooks in 6 minutes on the stove, 3 minutes in the microwave. Stovetop versus microwaving makes no difference in the quality. Microwave 1-1/2 minutes, stir and repeat; depending on your microwave, it should take a total of 3 to 3-1/2 minutes. Let cool for a minute before eating.

The Blend

Holly’s combines the creaminess of instant hot cereal with the chewiness of long-cooked grains. The pure natural ingredients blend together like a fine stew. Just because oatmeal is a great low fat food, loaded with heart healthy fiber, doesn’t mean the taste can’t be great. The variety of grains stand up better—thicker and more texture.

Thick rolled oats, instant oats, wheat barley, rye, triticale, flaxseed, Scottish oats (not steel cut), oat bran and multigrain hot cereal, plus golden flaxseed, which has a higher Omega 3 values than regular flaxseed, so for really high Omega-3s (flaxseed has no nutrition until it is ground).

The Flavors

Gluten-Free

The gluten-free blend contains a gluten-free oat—these are oats grown in fields where there is no wheat or barley grown to cross-contaminate the oats (and the other grains have never been grown there). Holly’s buys the oats from a grower who started to grow gluten-free oats because his daughter had Celiac disease. Rice, corn, and flax cereal are blended to create texture, creaminess and chewiness. Cook time is just 4 minutes on the stove, 2 in the microwave, and a serving delivers 8g of protein, 5g of fiber.

Coming Soon

A new flavor, Apricot With Hazelnut, flavored with low-glycemic maple flakes, will be ready at the end of March.

Toppings

While classic oatmeal photos tend to show a bowl with a pat of butter, milk or cream and fresh fruit, none of these is required. You can enhance your oatmeal with any variety of add-ons.

If you have any favorites not on this list, use the comments box at the top of the page to share them, and we’ll update this chart.

Oatmeal, Health & Nutrition

As a whole grain food, oatmeal is high in soluble fiber, niacin, riboflavin and iron, low in fat, and a source of protein. A half cup (57g) of dry oatmeal has 150 calories, 25 calories (3g) from fat. The role of whole-grain foods, like oatmeal, in the prevention of chronic disease is becoming more evident. According to Quaker Oats:

• Heart Disease. A heart-healthy food, 3g of soluble fiber daily from oatmeal, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. In 1997, the FDA approved this health claim for foods high in oat bran or rolled oats. More than 40 scientific studies have shown that eating oatmeal daily may help lower blood cholesterol (the beta glucan in the oats removes the LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, while maintaining the good cholesterol that the body needs). According to Quaker, three-quarters cup of oatmeal each day will help lower cholesterol. In general, eat at least three servings of whole grains daily.
• High Blood Pressure. Emerging research suggests that oatmeal may help maintain healthy blood pressure levels and may help promote healthy blood flow. Oatmeal may help reduce high blood pressure. The reduction is linked to the increase in soluble fiber provided by oatmeal. The fiber and other nutrients found in oatmeal may actually reduce the risk for certain cancers.
• Diabetes. Oatmeal is diabetic-friendly. The American Diabetes Association recommends that people with diabetes eat whole grains like oats. The soluble fiber helps to control blood glucose levels by slowing the rate of digestion. (Cooked oatmeal has a lower GI value than uncooked, because cooking releases water-soluble fibers from the flakes.)
• Cancer. Substances in whole grains may help prevent certain kinds of cancer, including cancers of the colon, stomach, and prostate. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, the outer layer of whole grains contains high amounts of cancer-fighting phytochemicals, including lignans and phenols.
• Energy. Oatmeal helps to bolster energy levels. Having energy sustained through the morning may be another benefit of making oats a regular part of a daily diet.
• Weight Management. As a diet food, the soluble fiber in oatmeal and other whole grains absorbs a considerable amount of water, which significantly slows down the digestive process. They promote a feeling of fullness, and you’ll feel full longer. They’re also nutritious.
• Regularity. Whole grain foods promote a healthy digestive system. The fiber helps achieve regularity.

With the exception of certain flavored varieties, oatmeal is 100% natural (Holly’s flavored varieties are 100% natural). Every type of oatmeal can be prepared in a microwave oven. But when you make Holly’s Oatmeal, you’ll have a new perspective on porridge. For entirely different reasons, you may extend your empty bowl with the request, “Please...may I have some more?”

— Karen Hochman

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