Transcription
So the topic of today is oatmeal, and I used to love oatmeal. I used to have it every single day as a breakfast, and I was told that it was healthy. And so today, I want to share, uh, three things that you probably have never heard before relating to oatmeal. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because if you're consuming oatmeal for health reasons, you may change your mind after watching this video.
Now, of course, I'm not telling you not to consume oatmeal. I just want to give you some additional information to think with that is not necessarily easy to find when you type "oatmeal" on the internet. And I'm not going to even cover what you probably already know, the sugary type of oatmeal in these little packets, this instant oatmeal, tons of sugar. You know, you already know that's really bad. I want to talk about the oatmeal that's actually not sweetened. But it's interesting, even in the packets of instant oatmeal that has tons of sugar, apparently you could still have a little claim there that says that it's heart healthy. I mean, you'll see articles out there that'll say that oatmeal is one of the healthiest foods that you can possibly eat. It's considered a superfood. It will lower your cholesterol. It will help your diabetes and blood sugars. It will make your heart healthy.
So the first thing I'm going to dive into, I'm going to put a bunch of studies down below so you can verify what I'm saying is true, is some studies done on oatmeal in relationship to blood sugars and insulin, as well as cholesterol. Now, when you read these studies, it does definitely say that there is a significant improvement in cholesterol, as well as blood sugars, okay, both. And that's pretty exciting. I mean, like, wow, because if something is cholesterol friendly or it's blood sugar friendly, then you know, sign me up. But if you actually read the studies, it will say there's a significant decrease in cholesterol and blood glucose compared to the control. Now, what is this mean compared to a control? What is that all about? Well, you're comparing it to something else, right? And that comparison is white bread. That's right, white bread. So if you compare anything to white bread, it's going to be better in a significant way. So let's say, for example, you eat some white bread, okay? And let's say it spikes your blood sugars by 10 points. And then when you eat, uh, the oats, it only spikes your blood sugars by five points. And then we can say in the study, there's a significant difference. There's a, a much less, like 50% less spike in blood sugars than the controls. But that 50% improvement is not just, you know, adding this to your diet and seeing an improvement in blood sugars. It's compared to something else.
And then when you read on in the study, it says the improvement in blood sugars only occurred right after the meal, okay? It didn't occur later on. Probably because there's a, a nice spike of blood glucose when you eat white bread. So that was one point. The other thing that they mentioned in the studies is that part of the study was just consuming three grams of beta-glucan, not consuming oatmeal, but just that compound. And that created a lowering of cholesterol. And so then by inference, and we can just say, well, there's beta-glucan in oats, and just by deductive reasoning, it then must create the same effect. But that's a little confusing because that's an isolated compound versus eating it as a whole grain. And then there's other studies that 29 participants enrolled in the study, they all had diabetes, and they did not see any change with blood glucose levels between the two. So when we talk about the benefit, there's only certain studies they're talking about. And so when they quote it's heart healthy, they're kind of cherry-picking certain parts of studies and not giving you the full understanding of what it really is going to do to your cholesterol levels or blood sugars. In fact, the best thing I think you should do is just start testing your blood sugars when you consume it, and then not consume it, and then you'll know for yourself. But also, I could not find any of these studies involving the instant oatmeal with all the added sugar, okay? Somehow those studies are really hard to find in relationship to them improving your blood glucose levels or insulin levels or cholesterol levels.
The next topic is gluten-free, right? Because we all know that oats are gluten-free. Well, apparently they do have a, a type of gluten. It's called avenin, okay? And this protein has been known to increase cytokines, which are in like an inflammatory response in your body. But here's the catch-22. It's delayed. You may not feel any symptoms for days later. So it's going to be very hard to make the connection between the two. But if you have irritable bowel syndrome or inflammation or celiac, you may find that eating oats can worsen the situation. And you have to realize that these glutens, which is just a category of a lot of different types of proteins, it's like one of the primary, uh, triggers for autoimmune diseases, especially Hashimoto's, which is a thyroid problem.
Number three, weed killer called glyphosate. It's interesting that the FDA, when they did the reports or studies on different foods, they kind of omitted oats for some reason. But we don't have to worry about that because Monsanto did their own studies, and that was the creator of glyphosate, and they said that it's completely safe. So we don't really have to worry about that. But of course, the World Health Organization did say that glyphosate is a carcinogen. And there was a lawsuit that was won in court by someone being exposed to glyphosate and winning millions of dollars because they developed cancer. And the type of cancer apparently increases the risk for is called Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. But another organization called EWG, which I'll put a link down below, when they found traces of glyphosate weed killer in over 95% of samples of oat products. And it's not that this oat is genetically modified. They use glyphosate as a pre-harvest drying agent because it can kill the plant really quick and dry it up. And that's what they use, not only in oats but in wheat. I mean, this kind of goes beyond the genetically modified foods like in the corn, the soy, canola, that type of thing.
So anyway, if you do have oats, of course, you know, steel-cut would be much better than the, the processed instant oats. And if you're going to eat it, make sure it's organic, okay? Unless you want some weed killer in there. But you may also want to try something. You might want to just skip your breakfast altogether and do intermittent fasting. You'll probably be shocked to find out how good you actually feel by not doing a breakfast in general. But that being said, if you want to do a breakfast, I think eggs would be a much better choice. Now, since we're on the topic of breakfast, if you have not seen my video on how to transition out of doing a breakfast and the benefits, I put that video up right here. Check it out.