Eat oats every day. Or at least try to. Of all the whole grains, the Heavy Hitter Award goes to Oats for decreasing bad LDL cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Oats also provide some important minerals that tend to run low in vegans: iron, calcium, thiamin, zinc, magnesium, and selenium. And get this! One serving of this recipe contains 19g of dietary fiber, and an incredible 23g of protein, which is almost half of your daily requirement.
 
The same nutrient – oats – has different physiologic effects depending on how processed it becomes. Whichever food form of a carb like oats allows the fastest digestion in the intestines will lead to the most rapid absorption into the bloodstream which then creates the highest sugar spike (because broken down carbs = sugar).That is the difference between instant oats (rolled the thinnest), quick-cooking (less thin), old-fashioned (least thin of the rolled oats), and steel cut oats (the thickest oat, not rolled, but cut into pinhead bits). To lower the glycemic load, never eat instant oats which often come in packets stuffed with added sugars and salt, and don’t bother with quick-cooking. Use old-fashioned or steel cut. All oats pack the same nutritional content into one of the simplest bowls on planet earth, but the effects are not the same.

Behold: A study fed 12 obese teenagers instant or steel cut oats and then tracked calories for the rest of the day. The instant group started snacking away within an hour, and then went on to consume 53% more calories than the steel cut group[1].

Guess what? You’re not going to cook these oats! Soaked oats resist digestion in the small intestine and become a prebiotic fiber source for the good bacteria in your colon. The longer you soak them, the softer the oats become, but you only need a few minutes to make them taste great – except steel cut. If you use steel cut oats, you will want to let them soak for at least 10 hours. Overnight works perfectly so you wake up to a ready-made meal. You can soak any oats in the fridge for up to 5 days. When I don’t have my antioxidant smoothie for breakfast, I make a bowl of Holy Oats in the morning and bring it to work; I don’t put it in the refrigerator so that the frozen berries defrost once added, and then I eat it 3 hours after making it. (I usually fast 16 hours a day and eat breakfast at 10am).
 
Behold, the 2-minute miracle!