Oatmeal, particularly the slow-cooked kind, is generally healthier than dry cereals like Cheerios.
That’s because the way the body processes the grains in your morning meal makes a difference in your digestion and can affect energy levels later in the day,
The New York Times reports.
Unprocessed whole oats, like those in steel-cut oatmeal, take a while for the body to digest. But with Cheerios and other processed cereals, “you basically have rapidly digested sugar mixed with bran and germ,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “It provides fiber and minerals, but also digests in the mouth almost immediately.”
That gives you a quick spike in blood sugar, but no lasting energy.
One 2013 study found that people who ate oatmeal felt fuller and had better appetite control than those who ate the same number of calories of processed cereal.
But both oatmeal and Cheerios are whole grains, which puts them ahead of cereals like Corn Flakes and Special K, in which the bran and germ have been removed, Dr. Mozaffarian said.
“If you eat a breakfast of refined cereal and skim milk,” Dr. Mozaffarian said, “your blood sugar is going to crash a few hours later, and you will be hungrier and eat more for lunch.”