Delighted to welcome Jillian Mooney- Performance Nutritionist for Team Joe Barr as our guest speaker on this blog post:-

Size Matters and all oats are not created equal

Let’s assume we’re talking about locally grown oats, planted by experienced growers in fertile and nutrient rich soil, harvested and sent to a local plant to be processed and milled. Those oats are equal until we start to process, cut and roll them.

If you’re choosing oatmeal for your health and performance then you may be interested to learn what benefits each type of oat flake brings.

The bigger and more whole the oat (think steel cut or Jumbo) the lower the glycaemic index. 

The only thing you need to know about glycaemic index - it's a scale or index from 0 to 100 (pure sugar being 100) of how quickly a carbohydrate rich food raises blood sugar levels. 

Why does this matter? Because the lower the glycaemic index the slower blood sugar levels rise in relation to what you’ve just eaten. That’s a good thing. You tend to feel fuller and your energy is more likely to stay stable for longer. As the oat is cut smaller and becomes more processed the glycaemic index starts to rise, meaning that your blood sugar level rises quicker but also falls quicker. You’ll feel hungrier and your energy will drop off at a faster rate.

Your typical Jumbo oat usually has a glycaemic index of around 55. Your typical medium cut oat usually clocks in around 65.

But instant oatmeal, particularly if you’re using single serve pots with added sugar can be as high as 70-80, which is no different to your typical cereal in a box. So if you’re choosing oatmeal to stay full and fuelled through the morning then a Jumbo Oat is your best choice.

Here’s one tip – at Team Joe Barr we mix a little finer cut oat into our Jumbo Oat base to give it a beautiful creamy texture.  Finer flakes absorb more liquid, becoming softer and creamier.  For many, that also makes them more digestible.

 So it really is possible to have the best of both flakes resulting in a low glycaemic index and creamy textured porridge!

Ends.