The easy answer to – Should I replace my traditional breakfast with Oats?
No.

Why? Not tasty.

Need more?
Don’t blend with regional cuisine and cooking methods. Don’t grow in the soil close to you or if they are grown don’t support the ecological diversity. Not in sync with the climate. Available in packaged form only. Nutrient profile on paper not the same as what gets assimilated inside the body. Excess fibre comes in the way of nutrient absorption.

But what about convenience?
Poha, upma, idli, dalia, etc., are equally, if not more, convenient and quick to prepare.


Points to consider –
1. Improving the marketability of packaged products by focusing on nutrients is an old trick that the food industry uses and quite successfully. From sponsoring competitions in nutrition colleges to medical conferences and seminars, the influence and budgets are impressive. Moreover, the same companies sell you both colas and oats. Roping in celeb chefs, promoting “health products”, etc., is a clever strategy that is in place to ward off the negative health image of colas and to diversify given the soda tax that many Western countries now levy on them.

2. The new frontier in nutrition science is the gut bacteria and its influence on our health and risk to diseases, especially the non communicable ones like – obesity, cancer, heart disease, etc. The human body maintains good gut bacteria diversity when the food is diverse. Diverse diets are achieved by eating fresh, local and cooking by using regional or time tested recipes. This works well for small farmers as well as ecology too.

3. Overall, the cutting edge nutrition science is saying look at diets that are based on food systems (health, economy, ecology) and not food groups – carb, fat, protein, fibre, etc. Even the advice to health professionals is to make food based and NOT nutrient based recommendations. E.g. – say eat poha, upma, paratha and not eat more fibre, eat good fats, etc.

4. The nutrition profile that Oats sell themselves on, already exists in our traditional breakfast options, which are much tastier too. Oats in fact tried to become more like our traditional foods with addition of herbs and spices, and there are plenty of masala versions in the market now.

The harm that i see in oats is that it sells the idea of convenience and weight loss to us women. Its not that women lack the time to cook, its that they lack help from the male members in the kitchen, and thats a problem across the globe. The UN’s Sustainable developmental goals have good health and wellbeing along with education and gender equality amongst its top 5 goals. Also the message to women that we must lose some weight to get more attractive/ acceptable gets reinforced with all the oats adverts.