I’ve got to admit, I love me some oatmeal in the morning.
How do I love thee, gruel?
Let me count the ways:
It’s a quick and easy. It’s very easily cooked over a fire – I use a Kelly Kettle when I’m out at The Place. When I’m somewhere with a microwave, it takes only two minutes, assembly time included. It’s hard to beat hot comfort food for breakfast, which doesn’t seem to evaporate with the morning dew like more ‘simple carb’ options such as cold cereals or pancakes do.
Rolled Oats are pretty decent even without cooking or heating. Use any of the ‘overnight oats’ recipes where you mix the ingredients and let them stand overnight in the fridge or cooler. I use the same recipes as for immediate cooking, except with a bit more water. I’d feel fine about using a cool spot in a basement, especially covered with a damp cloth for evaporative cooling, as I don’t use any dairy in mine; but that’s me and I make no guarantees on lack of spoilage. It’s a good way to incorporate other good storage foods for flavorful variety.
I like to use a palm full of walnuts, some dried fruit (increase water in a volume a little bit more than the volume of dried fruit added), and a sprinkle of cinnamon. (Cinnamon tends to make things taste sweeter, so with it and the fruit I don’t even want sugar.) Canned pumpkin is really healthy stuff, and when you add it to oats with nuts and some pumpkin pie spice, it’s wonderfully reminiscent of pumpkin pie. (Nope, not going to lie to you and tell you it’s ‘just like’ pie. It is good though.) Actually really healthy too.
One problem I have with many varieties of stored food is it tends to be of marginal nutrition: over-refined carbs in abundance, not enough fiber, protein, vitamins, or minerals.
Oats are whole grain, rich in a kind of fiber that helps keep blood cholesterol in check. They’ve got a lot of iron and useful amounts of calcium, magnesium, and Vit B-6, and are a decent protein source. The cinnamon (it hardly counts as oatmeal without cinnamon) helps reduce diabetes risk. Oats don’t have gluten if that sort of thing worries you (it doesn’t me).
It doesn’t have to be oatmeal. Oat breads and cookies are winners, and Mom used to use it to expand the available hamburger when making meatloaf or meatballs. Steel cut (also called ‘coarse’ or ‘Irish’) oats are maybe a shade healthier but take way longer to cook. Quick or instant oats take a little less to cook, but have lost some of that nice fiber (and they don’t store nearly as long).
The happy place for me is regular oats; your mileage may vary.
Since we also keep some stored food on hand, we buy oats in the 20 lb pails from Augason Farms. We order them through our Sam’s Club account, and at the time of this writing they are $33.96 per 20lb bucket shipped. For your $34 bucks you get oats in a food safe 6-gallon pail. What you don’t get is a sealed mylar bag inside that bucket like some of the premium services provide.
Augason Farms claims the following:
- 30 year shelf life*
- 216 servings
- 20 lb, 6-gallon pail
- Packaged loose in foodgrade pail for emergency food storage, camping or everyday use
- Best stored 55-70 degrees in 15 percent humidity (good luck with that anywhere but the desert).
When I eat my way through a pail (it takes about a year), we order a replacement while I grab an older one from stores to open.
Are Auason Farms oats amazingly better than any other oats? Nope, but they’re just as good as any other brand and are very well packaged so they’ll outlive me.
If you’re on the No Gluten train, Augason Farms claims these are gluten free. (Some companies process their oats in the same places as they process wheat products; those companies aren’t supposed to make the gluten-free claim.)
Summary? I just asked Salty to order another pail.
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