Best Cheap Breakfast: Oatmeal- Try it different ways

I determined that oatmeal is the best cheap breakfast when I figured out that buying organic rolled oats from the bulk bin provided me with a breakfast for a little over 15 cents per bowl. The oats themselves would cost me about 15 cents per 1/2 cup dried oats. Of course I don't eat them plain, so whatever I combine it with adds more to the cost. It's hard to beat that for a whole meal (even at McDonalds, ha ha). Better yet, I found that where I shop, steel cut oats are actually cheaper than rolled oats, and although they take longer to cook, I like the texture and flavor much better.

I've been experimenting with ways to eat oatmeal without adding a sweetener. For a while I was using stevia, but I'm trying to avoid relying on any sweetener. I like my oatmeal with a fruit and nut combination, like chopped apple and nuts. This is even better with some fresh-squeezed orange juice, although those watching their blood sugar levels should watch the juice.  A sliced banana is also good in oats.  Various crushed nuts or nut butters, seeds, coconut flakes or coconut milk are really great additions, just keep your fat intake in check if you're concerned about that.  Vanilla extract helps provide a nicer flavor if you're not used to the lack of sweetener.

Adding flax meal to oatmeal works rather well.  I usually buy whole flax seeds and grind them in a coffee grinder almost every morning (although I've been making more smoothies than oatmeal these days, but it works well in both). 

The soluble fiber in oatmeal (and in fruits) is shown to help with cholesterol levels. It's become one of those "functional foods" marketed to people concerned about their health but who don't take the time to just make meals out of whole foods. When people don't understand what makes food healthy, they can become victims to marketing schemes like the McDonalds'. Even I thought, "Wow, at least they're making an effort" when I saw their oatmeal advertised. But that was until I read about it.

As a New York Times blogger writes,

Yet in typical McDonald’s fashion, the company is doing everything it can to turn oatmeal into yet another bad choice. (Not only that, they’ve made it more expensive than a double-cheeseburger: $2.38 per serving in New York.) “Cream” (which contains seven ingredients, two of them actual dairy) is automatically added; brown sugar is ostensibly optional, but it’s also added routinely unless a customer specifically requests otherwise. There are also diced apples, dried cranberries and raisins, the least processed of the ingredients (even the oatmeal contains seven ingredients, including “natural flavor”).

A more accurate description than “100 percent natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”

For a quicker option, soak rolled oats (steel cut oats won't be digestible if not cooked) overnight with some water, milk substitute, or juice (or combination of these) in the fridge.  You can throw in your additions in the morning of course.  Or you could throw in some frozen fruit like blueberries with the oats the night before so their thawed by morning.  Dried fruit (avoid the stuff with added sugar) will be nice and moist if it's soaked with the oats as well.  Throw in whole raw nuts and they'll be even more digestible by morning, even though the oats will probably not be as digestible soaked as they are if they're cooked.  Nonetheless, this is a great way to have breakfast on the go.  You can heat this if you don't want it cold, but it'll add on some time.  Because I'm not real big on the texture of soaked oats, I've made a smoothie out of it which worked out pretty well.  That's not a big time saver, but it gave me a fiber-filled cheap whole food smoothie.

Speaking of soaking, if you want to try the steel cut oats, which I highly recommend, soak them the night before and that will cut down on the cooking time, just like with other grains and beans.  I haven't tried this yet, but I imagine you could cook a large batch of steel cut oats and keep the rest in the fridge to eat throughout the week.

If you're concerned about gluten, you can find oats that are certified gluten-free, but of course that makes them more expensive.  If you don't have celiac, oats may not be a problem.  Of course there are other grains you can try, such as buckwheat, quinoa, millet, etc.  Most of these are more expensive than oats, unfortunately.  Brown rice might be a good choice that's closer in price to oats.