Why is oatmeal bad for you?

Oatmeal is bad for you

It turns out that eating as much oatmeal as you can stomach isn't as good as you've been led to believe.

Why oatmeal is bad for you

1. Oatmeal consumption can lead to weight gain
2. Added sugars spike your blood sugar and raise blood pressure
3. Sweeteners cause weight gain and become addictive
4. Oatmeal is high in carbohydrates
5. Refined oatmeal contains unhealthy ingredients like preservatives, flavors and artificial ingredients
6. Refined or processed oats don't contain the same nutrients as raw oats 
7. Eating carbohydrates first thing in the morning will lead to weight gain and unstable blood sugar

Oatmeal can make you put on weight

Self.com explains that eating oatmeal for breakfast can sabotage your weight loss efforts. This is mostly due to the things that we add to our oatmeal to improve its taste.

Added sugar

One way that oatmeal can lead to weight gain is the fact that people add sugars to it. People do this to make it more palatable. The high sugar content in oatmeal with added sugar will spike your blood sugar. This causes you to crave more sugar throughout the rest of the day.

Starting your day with a sugar-filled meal will spike your blood sugar and cause it to drop shortly afterwards. This will lead to sugar cravings and restart the cycle every few hours. Your body stores all the excess sugar as fat after each cycle. The body cannot burn fat when blood sugar levels are too high.

It's all about the sugar content.

Artificial sweeteners

Using artificial sweeteners instead of sugar is just as bad as sugar itself. They make you gain weight, reduce your taste for healthy food, increase your risk of diabetes and raise your chances of getting metabolic syndrome (which is a cluster of issues like increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol and obesity). They are also highly addictive. Click on the link for more information.

People think that oatmeal is healthier than it actually is

Oatmeal is considered a super food. This gives people the idea that they can eat as much of it as they want. Anything more than the recommended daily consumption of 6 ounces of oatmeal per day (or half a cup of raw oats) can put you past this limit. Many people eat more than this in a single serving. Eating more than what your body needs will turn oatmeal into an unhealthy portion of food.

Excess calories will be stored as fat and excess weight gain has many negative health consequences of its own.

Moderation is everything.

Oatmeal is not a healthy breakfast option

One of the reasons why too much oatmeal consumption becomes unhealthy is the fact that it is so high in carbohydrates. 12% of raw oatmeal is pure carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates are not the best thing to eat for breakfast

Breakfast is the first meal that you eat after hours of fasting (eating nothing during sleep). The first meal of your day should be low in carbohydrates and sugars, high in proteins and contain moderate levels of fat. Oatmeal is the exact opposite: It is high in carbohydrates (and high in sugars if some is added for taste) and low in both proteins and healthy fat.

Carbohydrates for breakfast are unhealthy

Your liver stores sugar in the form of glycogen. When you don't give the liver enough time to deplete glycogen stores, all of the extra carbohydrates and sugars get turned into fat. Sugar is addictive. Your body will crave more foods that contain sugars and carbohydrates because it never dips into its fat stores.

How long does it take for liver glycogen stores to be completed?

Your body stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the muscles and the liver. After some time, your liver will start to break these glycogen stores down for energy. Once these stores are depleted, your body turns to fat for energy. It takes 18-24 hours of fasting for liver glycogen to be depleted and only 90 minutes of medium-to-high intensity exercise for liver glycogen to be depleted. When liver glycogen stores are depleted, your body switches to burning fat as its primary energy source.

Fat is burned when glycogen stores are depleted.

Nutritional content of oatmeal

100g (or 3.5 ounces) of oatmeal contains:

• 68 calories
• 1.4 grams of fat
• 0.2 grams of saturated fat
• 0.4 grams of polyunsaturated fat
• 0.4 grams of monounsaturated fat
• 49 milligrams of sodium
• 12 grams of carbohydrates
• 2.4 grams of protein
• 0.5 grams of sugar
• 61 milligrams of potassium
• 1.7 grams of dietary fiber
• 8% of your daily Vitamin A requirement
• 8% of your daily Calcium requirement
• 33% of your daily Iron requirement
• 15% of your daily Vitamin B 6 requirement
• 6% of your daily Magnesium requirement

Refined oats are not as healthy as raw oats

Refined oats are more pleasing to the palate and are easier to prepare. Most people consume refined or processed oats thinking that they are healthy options.

Why refined oats are less healthy than raw oats

1. Refined oats are easier to digest. Their energy content is dumped more quickly into your system. This turns most of its calorie content into fat instead of being used for energy. It also spikes your blood sugar.
2. They have their bran (the outer layer of skin) and the germ (the inner seed) removed. This takes away the beneficial fiber and a lot of its vitamin content. 
3. Refined oatmeal is also dramatically higher in carbohydrates. This increases the amount of calories that each serving contains.
4. Refined versions of oatmeal often contain added sugars, sweeteners, preservatives and flavors. All of these additives are bad for your health and turn a 'super food' into a 'junk food'.

Is oatmeal good for you at all?

Oatmeal might not be the best choice for breakfast because of its carbohydrate content. Adding additional ingredients like sugar, sweeteners, flavors and preservatives to oats also make them unhealthy. Raw oats can, however, be a healthy addition to your diet.

They make a great choice to replace carbohydrates after exercise, for example. Here are some of the reasons why raw oats may be beneficial to your health:

1. Oatmeal contains soluble fiber

Soluble fiber is good for you. It is known to lower the risk of heart disease, slow the rate of digestion and keep you fuller for longer. In the long-run, this should decrease the amount of time that it takes before your body craves food again and therefore lower your overall caloric intake. Soluble fiber lowers your LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol).

2. Oatmeal is recommended for diabetics because it does not spike blood sugar in the same way as simple carbohydrates

The slow-digesting effects of oatmeal make it more suitable to diabetics, compared to other typical breakfast options. This is because it does not spike blood sugar in the same way that refined carbohydrates or simple, added sugars do in typical cereal-based breakfasts.

3. Oatmeal is recommended by many nutritionists

Many nutritionists recommend oatmeal for breakfast because it keeps you fuller for longer. This is due to its soluble fiber content. The less you eat, the less weight you should gain and the fewer spikes you would have in your blood sugar.

I hope that I have given you the information that you need to make an informed choice when it comes to your health. If you have learned anything new or would like to add to the discussion, please write a comment below. Stay Strong!

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