6 Things You Need to Know About Oats as a Meal
Oat remains an important cereal crop in the developing world and the most popularly cultivated species is Avena sativa L. and is trivially known as common covered white oat. When it comes to health benefits of Oats as a meal, there are numerous. This is a very well known and popular cereal among all age groups and around all corners of the world. Coming to it’s cultivation, it is well grown in places like Northwest Europe because they have low heat requirement. In addition to this, India has major cultivation of Oats in UP, Punjab, Haryana and some places in MP, Odisha and West Bengal. This is mostly used either as rolled oats or oats meal. Lets look into some of its benefits which you should know about Oats as a meal.
1. High in Protein
This is a known fact that Oats are having very good amount of Protein packed in it and also at lower costs. Having said that, you can use Oat meal as a very good alternative to pre-workout meal. Additionally, it keeps our daily carb intake in check as well with providing enough energy.
As a result of this, our muscle fibers get adequate amount of protein with other essential amino acids required for muscle protein synthesis.
2. Rich in Dietary Fiber and Antioxidants
Another benefit of having Oats as one of the meal throughout the day is it’s rich fiber content. In other words, Oats have polysaccharides such as β-glucan. This polysaccharide is effective in regular bowl movement and avoiding constipation. As a results, it improves the digestion.
Secondly, Oats regulates the rate of nutrient digestion and absorption and serves as a substrate for the microflora of the gut and promotes laxation.
Not only this but researches have found that Oats contain many phenolic compounds including avenanthramides (AVAs) and Glycerides. These compounds possess high level of antioxidants in our body.
3. Lower Blood Sugar
Being low in glycemic index, Oats is an amazing superfood when comes to controlling sugar level in our body. In fact studies have suggested that when meals with required amount of β-glucan were provided to overweight people, their insulin levels were significantly decreased.
This is because of the presence of β-glucan which makes us feel satiated for long time and delays the insulin absorption in our body.
4. Helps in Weight Loss
No wonder when Oats helps in digestion and being rich in fiber, it thus helps maintain our body weight.
As a matter of fact, usually it is advised that Oats should be our first meal of the day i.e. breakfast. One reason is we feel satiated for long time and feel energetic. Secondly, it also provides many macro as well as micro nutrients to our body as part of the first meal.
5. Improves Athletic Performance
We all know that Carbohydrates are the main source of our energy. Having said that, Oats is a cereal which meets this criteria very effectively.
1 cup of cooked Oats has around 27g of Carbs which is roughly 9% of our required daily value. For this reason, this has always been the favorite meal for many athletes and sportspersons. Whether you love it or hate it, you can get all out of it when comes to nutrition.
7. Improves Heart Health
As per FDA researches, a considerable amount of 3g soluble oat β-glucan can lower the risk of coronary heart disease. Adding to that, researches have found Oats to be very effective due to its β-glucan range from 2.3 to 8.5/100 g.
Furthermore, due to the presence of soluble fibers in Oats, it reduces the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the “bad” cholesterol.
One thing to note here, to reap all the benefits of this amazing cereal, prefer having it as rolled oats and not as an instant one.
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