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 This breakfast of Oat Bran with Blueberries, Cinnamon and Skim Milk takes some getting used to, but once you develop a taste for it, it will give you an excellent and easy start to every day.
The photo shows a bowl of porridge oats.
If you are not a porridge eater, start with an easy-to-make porridge - even the stuff in the little packets is OK. If you have to begin with the sweetened, flavoured kind, go ahead. The goal is to gradually reduce the sugar and additives and to replace the porridge oats with oat bran until you are eating pure oat bran with fruit.
Do this by adding a teaspoon of oat bran to the porridge before you cook it. Gradually increase the amount of bran. If it is not appetizing, replace some of the pre-sweetened porridge with plain porridge and move to plain porridge with fruit. Then gradually replace the porridge with oat bran, a little more every day, or every week.
Eventually your winning breakfast will be oat bran with blueberries, skim milk and cinnamon.
How to Cook Oat Bran
It's a matter of taste. You can cook it like porridge in water, milk, or a combination on top of the stove. It also works in the microwave. Be sure to use enough liquid. I go with a ratio of more than 1 to 1. Add about 3/4 cup of liquid to 1/2 cup of bran, microwave (covered in case of splatters) for about 3 minutes - THIS DEPENDS ON YOUR MICROWAVE! Mine is very old and not that effective. If you have a new one, try 1 1/2 minutes.
Let the cooked cereal stand for a minute or two.
Sprinkle cinnamon on the top, add abundant blueberries - half a cup or more - and milk.
A faster way: add boiling water from the kettle to the oat bran directly and let it stand until cooked. It will not taste as good but it's a no-clean-up method and uses less electricity than the microwave.
What's So Good About Oat Bran with Blueberries, Cinnamon and Skim Milk?
Oat bran is said to help control or lower bad cholesterol. It is very high in fibre, which is excellent for digestive health. If you are not used to eating much fibre, be sure to drink a glass of water with your breakfast and to keep your fluids up. Getting rid of the processed sugar in breakfast cereal is better for your teeth and generally healthier.
Blueberries and cinnamon are both potential cancer-fighters, depending upon whose books you read. The berries are rich in antioxidants and several vitamins, including folate. Use lots of berries to balance out the heavy taste and texture of the oat bran.
Skim milk (again, work your way from higher fat to skim by using a mixture of the two) has calcium and added vitamin D, with no fat. Apart from people who need the calories (pregnant and nursing mums often do), most of us could do with a little less fat in our diets.
The overall combination is a delicious warm meal that will carry you well into the morning.
Remember, breakfast is gold, lunch is silver, and dinner is bronze. This simple bowl is a gold medallist of nutrition.
Porridge Oats with Blueberries and Cinnamon by Ash theFreecycler,
posted to Wikimedia Commons and used under Creative Commons Attribution
License 2.0. Thanks to Ash for freeing the image.
Tags: blueberries oat bran healthy eating breakfast cinnamon anti-oxidants vitamins |
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