Quaker Oats Living Proof – It’s Oatmealapalooza

[Jason Falls]

Saturday I joined 15 other bloggers for a day of learning and fun at Quaker Oats headquarters in Chicago. There really was so much information and learning that happened that one blog post here can’t do it justice. But for the sake of recapping it all, here’s a report:

We hung out in the Upload Lounge in the PepsiCo Sustainability Center. There’s much to say about the center, but it’s off-topic, so we’ll move on. Still, we sat on chairs made from recycled Aquafina bottles. That was cool.
Renee Millican from the Quaker Oats research and development team took us through what oats are, how oatmeal is made and apparently educated everyone on some truths that are often missed. There’s no nutritional difference between old fashioned oatmeal, quick oatmeal and instant oatmeal. The difference is only in how they are cut and rolled to make the meal.

Shelley Haus, the Director of Breakfast and owner of the second coolest title in the world (mine is Social Media Explorer … ha!), was truly engaging in not just talking about Quaker Oats products and marketing, but listening and soliciting feedback from the group. She also let us know that Quaker Oats has a pancake mix coming out in January. That information apparently wasn’t public until she told us, so several of us “broke” the news on Twitter.

Dr. Annabelle Volgman, a well-respected cardiologist and expert on women’s heart issues, gave us a very interesting presentation on heart health, which included much more than just cholesterol information. One particular graphic she used disturbed me. It was a photo of two tubes filled with blood glucose. One was taken from a subject in a fasting state and looked like a light, amber whiskey. The other was taken after eating a fatty meal and looked like a tube of cooled bacon grease. Just seeing how thick and nasty that looked and realizing that's what's in my arteries after a burger made me pause.

Finally, nutrition and natural foods guru and author Dave Grotto tied it all together with seven nutrition strategies that can help you eat healthier. One of his key tenets is that healthy food doesn't do any good if it doesn't taste good. His book, "101 Foods That Could Save Your Life," details many foods that are good for you and that taste good or can be prepared in ways that makes them taste better than you'd think.

Grotto also explained that consumer trends show people are tired of being told what not to eat, but also don’t know what they can eat. He gave us seven tips to prioritize your dietary regimen to focus on positive nutrition, do-ability and taste:

1. Add in good foods and those that supply vitamins you might be deficient in before ever taking other foods away.
2. Eat breakfast. It statistically shows your diet and nutrition are better if you do. Certainly, he recommends whole oats in oatmeal or whole oat cereals.
3. Eat more soluble fiber. The kind of fiber found in oats, nuts, carrots and more is what binds to fatty acids, gets them out of your system and prolongs the digestion activity in the stomach. It’s what makes you feel like oatmeal “stays with you,” longer. It’s also the kind of fiber that lowers your cholesterol.
4. Eat more healthy fats like those found in fatty fishes like salmon, soybeans and walnuts.
5. Get in more potassium. No one normally gets the right amount of potassium they should. Eat more tomatoes, drink orange juice, etc.
6. Get in more phoy phenolics, or plant chemicals which make for healthier cells and also lower cholesterol. You find these in olive oil and legumes. These are the big benefits of what some people call a Mediterranean diet.
7. Get in more physical activity. Well, duh.

And, of course, we ate LOTS of oatmeal and oatmeal-based food. I’ve never thought I could possibly be engorged on oats, but damn if I wasn’t. And don’t worry, I won’t be doing a follow up to report how Sunday goes. Heh.

As it turns out, some of the bloggers there have some great oatmeal recipes and information on their sites.

http://www.katheats.com/?page_id=2032 (@KathEat’s tribute to oatmeal.)
http://greenlitebites.com/tag/oatmeal/ (@RonisWeigh’s oatmeal tagged content.)

I'm sure more learning and sharing will come. For now, I’m going to lie down and think about digesting oats.

Here's the list of my fellow bloggers again. I'm sure more of them have oatmeal recipes and ideas, so check them out, too:

Carla of MizFit Online
Roni of Roni's Weigh
Jennette of PastaQueen
Tanya of I Ate Pie
Lisa of Workout Mommy
Monique of Big Fat Deal
Leslie of Weighting Game
Anne Marie of This Mama Cooks
Amy of Super Healthy Kids
Jenna of Eat Live Run
Kath of Kath Eats Real Food
Lyn of Escape from Obesity
Alanna of A Veggie Venture
Anne of Elastic Waist
Stephanie of Back Skinny Jeans

Photo by Kaitlyn Watkins courtesy of Quaker Oats.

[AskTheGuy-titian]

Jason:

It was great to finally meet you and the other bloggers at the Quaker event. How neat was it to be the only two dudes in a sea of incredible women! I love my job!

I hope you had a great time and made it back safely. Keep up the great work and let me say for the record, Twit2Fit rocks!!

[Jason Falls]

That's right readers - Grotto is on Twit2Fit! Our first celebrity, unless you count Jeremy Pepper, who is only a niche celebrity. Heh.

Thanks Dave. It was certainly good meeting you and being one of two men. Certainly kept the bathroom lines short. Heh.