This guide will tell you everything about oats and why you need to include them as part of a body and brain-boosting diet!
We’ve all heard the term superfood and oats fall very comfortably into this category. They’re one of the healthiest options for your breakfast because every oat is chock-full of vitamins. You can also add them to your lunch or dinner meals or as a snack throughout the day.
If you’re wondering what oats can do for you, keep reading.
6 Reasons to Choose Oats
There are many benefits to including oats in your diet and your daily life.
A Great Start to Your Nutrition for the Day
The most popular way to eat oats is in the morning as porridge. You cook them with water or milk. Many people will add a spoonful of peanut butter or a pinch of cinnamon to give their porridge a bit more flavor. You can also add fresh fruit to your oats.
The reason oats are such a great breakfast choice is because they’re a slow-release carbohydrate. This means that you’ll feel fuller and sustained for longer. Most breakfast cereals are full of quick-release sugars that give you a spike in energy that fades very quickly. With oats, you get long-term energy, which is a great nutritional building block to start off your day.
Help You to Cut Down on Snacking
Following on from this concept of slow-release sugars, oats for breakfast will lessen the need for snacks throughout the day. You’ll be sustained for a lot longer after eating breakfast, and you’re unlikely to feel hungry during the morning.
This is ideal if you’re looking to lose or maintain your weight. It’ll be much easier to cut out snacking on foods that aren’t good for you when you don’t feel hungry, or you aren’t suffering from sugar spikes throughout the day.
If you don’t want to use oats as your main breakfast, you can include oats in your snacks as a healthier option that will sustain you between meals rather than just give you another sugar spike. Putting oats into a fruit smoothie is great for a snack or for part of a meal as it bulks it up and blends in well with other flavors.
Helps To Boost Your Memory
Oats aren’t just good for losing weight. They’re actually good for the brain too. There’s a substance called choline in oats, and this is very important for your body. Choline helps us to produce the neurotransmitters that we use for memory in our brains.
This is why giving your kids oats in the morning before school is such a good idea. Not only are they sustained with energy levels, but their brains are also going to be able to work better and store more of the knowledge they’re learning in class. The same goes for students and university, or adults working jobs where they need to retain lots of information.
Oats Can Reduce Your Cholesterol Levels
Soluble fiber is vital for keeping cholesterol levels down in our bodies. This is because it reduces the levels of low-density lipoproteins in our blood, reducing how much cholesterol we can absorb. Oats are an excellent source of soluble fiber and are one of the best foods you can eat if you’re worried about your cholesterol levels.
As an added benefit, lower cholesterol levels also decrease your chances of getting brain-related diseases. Alzheimer’s is the big one that’s been linked to high cholesterol levels as part of the cause.
So, oats do a lot more for your brains than you might have thought they could!
They’re Packed Full of Vitamins and Minerals
In addition to the slow-release carbohydrates and the ability to help lower your cholesterol levels, oats are packed full of essential vitamins and minerals for our bodies. They contain zinc, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and folate—all in quantities high enough to make a difference.
Oats also contain high levels of vitamin B1 and B5, as well as smaller quantities of vitamin B6 and B3, potassium and calcium. You’ll also get some natural antioxidants out of your morning bowl of oats in the form of spermidine. This compound also helps to stave off age-related diseases, improves memory, and reduce inflammation.
You Can Use Oats on Your Skin
Oats aren’t just for eating if you want to get all the benefits you can from them. The beauty industry has been using oats as a natural exfoliant and skin scrub for centuries. They’re one of the best natural ingredients you can use on your skin. Plus, they’re suitable for even the most sensitive skin.
An oat-based scrub or face wash is great to use on problem skin and can help get rid of blackheads and oil that can build up to cause pimples and acne. Oats also have anti-inflammatory properties, which work on irritated skin to help soothe and reduce redness and swelling. The best part is that oat-based skincare products don’t dry out the skin like so many products for problem skin are designed to do.
Oats are also used in lotions and moisturizers because they form a protective layer over the skin that keeps moisture in and prevents oily build-up. These products are perfect for dry skin that has a tendency to get itchy or flake.
Oats Give You More Than You Know
The benefits of including oats as a regular part of your diet and your skincare routine are easy to see. The fact that they’re full of vitamins, minerals and healing properties makes them the obvious
choice.
If you’re not into eating cooked oats for breakfast, try toasting them and creating your own healthy muesli. You can add uncooked, rolled oats to a smoothie to give it more bulk and help to sustain your body with energy. You could even consider switching to oat milk to get more out of your cup of coffee in the morning. With a little bit of imagination, there are so many ways to get all the goodness of oats in your diet.
