{"id":10707,"date":"2010-03-03T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T16:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/?p=10707"},"modified":"2010-03-03T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T16:42:08","slug":"oatmeal-purist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2010\/03\/oatmeal-purist\/","title":{"rendered":"Oatmeal Purist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My love for oatmeal started not long after I started this blog.\u00a0 Now I’ve always enjoyed oatmeal but I had a limit of what I could take in.\u00a0 I could handle the texture and taste only for so long and then I had to call it quits.<\/p>\n

Oatmeal was in my diet for the first half of my life.\u00a0 I was a lucky person because my mom actually made me breakfast before I left for school.\u00a0 I didn’t eat cereal or toast or something frozen that I heated up in the microwave.\u00a0 My mom made me pancakes, eggs, and oatmeal.\u00a0 Rotated of course, not all of that everyday!<\/p>\n

It was your typical oatmeal though, quick oats with milk and then I added a touch of brown sugar to it.\u00a0 Good but nothing fancy.\u00a0 Then I moved on in life and sort of left oatmeal in the dust like that mix tape from your first love.<\/p>\n

When I saw a lot of the healthy living bloggers dressing up their oatmeal it brought out my creativity and I fell in love with oatmeal.\u00a0 Before I liked oatmeal, now we had an obsessive relationship complete me with leaving notes on it’s car and calling it at 3am.\u00a0 Okay maybe no 3am calls but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

There are so many things you can do with oatmeal that it boggles my mind.\u00a0 I never thought about mix-ins and PB<\/abbr> or anything added to oatmeal before.\u00a0 This was a whole new world for me and I loved it.\u00a0 I did all kinds of inappropriate things to oatmeal in order to keep the spark alive.<\/p>\n

It also helped that I found my own “recipe” in terms of making oats the best it can be for me.\u00a0 I use soymilk as a base and a smashed banana for sweetness.\u00a0 I add in some cinnamon and ground flax at the end.<\/p>\n

During this time I learned that my body LOVES whole grains.\u00a0 It needs them and when it doesn’t get them, I notice a serious lack in my get-up-and-go.\u00a0 I also have less energy and my digestive tract doesn’t feel as clean.\u00a0 Whatever, I’m being honest, you’ll live.\u00a0 Currently, I’m buying 5lb boxes of oats at Sam’s.\u00a0 Not just one, but multiple at a time.\u00a0 I think the checkers as Sam’s assume that I run a nursing facility with my large amount of oats and prune purchases.<\/p>\n

Eventually, things sort of shifted for me and just like any relationship that has sustained itself for a significant length of time, I started craving the old and familiar.<\/p>\n

My body wanted more whole grains and less flair.\u00a0 I realized that I actually would rather have a HUGE bowl of oats over a smaller bowl with lots of bling.<\/p>\n

Now?\u00a0 I don’t even use mix-ins.\u00a0 The craziest I get is adding in either some:<\/p>\n