LW - you should probably eat oatmeal sometimes by bhauth

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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: you should probably eat oatmeal sometimes, published by bhauth on August 25, 2024 on LessWrong.
Inspired by all the blog posts I've seen promoting unusual diets, nootropic drugs, unusual sleep cycles, and so on, I've decided to make my own post suggesting some radical lifestyle choice.
My suggestion here is, as the title says: you should probably eat oatmeal sometimes. Yes, I know, oats are <2% of global grain production, so this is a pretty crazy-sounding idea, but bear with me. Eating oatmeal sometimes will literally change your life.*
*slightly
oatmeal vs rice
White rice is one of the most popular foods in the world.
Compared to white rice:
oats have ~2x the protein and much more fiber
their amino acid composition is somewhat more balanced
their arsenic levels are generally lower
oatmeal is slightly more expensive, but still cheap
oatmeal is generally faster to cook
about whole-wheat flour
Whole-grain wheat flour goes rancid much faster than white flour.
Wikipedia, quoting a 2004 book, says:
The germ is rich in polyunsaturated fats (which have a tendency to oxidize and become rancid on storage) and so germ removal improves the storage qualities of flour.
(The "germ" is the part of the seed that actually grows into a new plant. As you'd expect, it's the part with the most protein and vitamins.)
Hmm. If that's the problem, why do (unground) wheat berries last for 10+ years, longer than white flour? Does the bran protect stuff from oxygen? I don't think so, it's not metal foil, it has some gas permeability.
Maybe there's a correction of Wikipedia from some reliable source, like Wikipedia. Here's a post from a food testing company that says:
The lipolytic enzyme lipase reacts with triglycerides to form free fatty acids in a degradation process known as hydrolytic rancidity; lipase enzymes cleave fatty acids from triglycerides.
...
Oats also contain a powerful lipoxygenase that adds oxygen to the double bonds of unsaturated fat to form peroxides, as discussed above. The other enzyme present, peroxidase, reduces peroxides producing mono-, di-, and tri-hydroxy acids, which are extremely bitter. These compounds cause the bitter flavor of rancid wheat germ.
...
In most biological systems, peroxidase requires much more heat to destroy than lipases, lipoxygenases or any of the other enzymes that may be present.
Ah yes, enzymes. When wheat berries are ground to flour, the enzymes start doing things and the flour goes rancid, but if you remove stuff to make white flour, you remove most of the enzymes.
As for oatmeal, rolled oats have such enzymes activated, so they must be treated with steam. Oats have the germ in the bottom, and can be cut up more easily than wheat without triggering enzymes too much, but steamed rolled oats still last longer than unsteamed steel-cut oats. It's similar to how cutting onions releases alliinase but if you microwave the onion first it deactivates most of that.
Also, I think the rancidity-relevant enzymes in oatmeal might have lower thermal stability than the ones in wheat. But it's still possible to steam-treat whole wheat so that whole wheat flour lasts longer. I think people have relatively recently found that you want to use superheated steam for that. Maybe whole wheat flour treated with superheated steam will be a thing in the future.
oatmeal is versatile
Oatmeal works with a variety of different flavors, and other ingredients can often simply be added to it before or after cooking.
There are several options for the liquid used, including:
water
milk
tea
coconut milk
There are also many reasonable options for additional flavors, including:
fruit paste
fruit syrup
frozen fruit pulp
chocolate
brown sugar
maple syrup
Flavor combinations I've used for oatmeal include:
tea + blackcurrant concentrate + brown sugar
passionfruit pulp + brown sugar
...