Dieticians agree, the healthiest oats out there for your oatmeal are oat groats, and not the likes of quick oats, rolled oats or steel-cut oats.
Oat groats are basically whole oat kernels that have had their loose hulls removed and have been thoroughly cleaned before being treated with heat and moisture. This gives them more phenolic content and antioxidant properties.
And if all that’s not enough, it also increases the oat groats’ flavor development and its shelf life too.
And in the production of these oat groats, although the loose hulls are removed, the rest remains intact, including the germ, the endosperm, and the bran.
The resulting oat groats are packed with dietary fiber and with all sorts of important and beneficial nutrients. These include the likes of selenium, potassium, B vitamins, magnesium, antioxidants and iron.
Other types of oats are more heavily processed, and this strips them of many of their health benefits.
Oat groats and steel-cut oats are lower on the glycemic index than their more heavily processed counterparts. This means that they will take longer to digest. This in turn means that you will feel satiated and full for a longer period of time afterwards.