Primal Blueprint - No Porridge?

hcass

Hi everyone,

I am hoping someone can help me. I have changed from Atkins to the Primal diet and I love it. Atkins worked but I couldn't handle counting all those carbs from veggies. I LOVE my veggies. Anyway the Primal diet like Atkins is discouraging me from eating Porridge. But I LOVE porridge. And I find when I have eggs and bacon it just doesn't fill me the way porridge does. Tons of people on this nutrition & diet forum have porridge for breakfast, people that know a lot more about nutrition and healthy eating than I do. So I am wondering is it ok for me to have porridge for breakfast but otherwise keep to the primal diet? Will it stop the positive effects of the primal programme?

ANy help would be greatly appreciated?

ApeXaviour

Are you trying to lose weight?
If so a bit of porridge 2-3 times a week isn't going to do you any harm, it might even be better if the rest of your diet is low carb. A little carb refeed now and then on a low carb diet has its benefits, especially if it's not wheat/sugar based.

If you're not trying to lose weight and you love porridge, then yeah go for it.

Red Cortina

If you are trying to avoid gluten then porridge oats are a no go.

El_Dangeroso

There might be tiny amounts of gluten in oats but unless you're coeliac it probably wouldn't affect you, in any case you can get certified gluten-free oats.

The main thing with porridge is it should really be soaked or fermented overnight prior to eating it. That's traditionally how Irish and Scottish people ate their oats and for very good reasons, it reduces the lectins and phytic acid. In fact any healthy culture eats their grains as a fermented porridge. I would skip it for a few weeks to see if it gives you issues first but if you really love it there's no reason in my mind it can't be the 20% that Mark talks about when he says 80:20.

Fermenting is easy, tablespoon live yoghurt in water, pop in the oats and leave overnight at room temp. If you are just soaking with water then you have to use 'live' oats, as in ones that haven't been toasted.

Red Cortina

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

There might be tiny amounts of gluten in oats but unless you're coeliac it probably wouldn't affect you, in any case you can get certified gluten-free oats.

Was really surprised by this but even those Kelkin oats which are labelled gluten free are not considered gluten free by the folks at the Coeliac Society of Ireland!

El_Dangeroso

Red Cortina wrote: »

Was really surprised by this but even those Kelkin oats which are labelled gluten free are not considered gluten free by the folks at the Coeliac Society of Ireland!

I do think coeliacs are a special case though, they have pretty damaged guts, so are probably reacting to the other proteins in porridge. Some coeliacs don't react to oats at all and some do.

Check out the scottish highlanders in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/price4.html

They do pretty well on oats, teeth-wise anyway. Not as well as their grain-avoiding counterparts but they still eat a very nutritious diet (mmm..fish heads!).

I think if the OP is gonna spend all their time missing oats then there really are so many worse things you could do than have a bowl of porridge a few times a week, especially if they're fermenting it and eating a very nutrient-dense diet.

Macha

Would Flahavans Organic Jumbo oats be "live" oats?

I can't see toasting in their processes:

http://www.flahavans.com/home/makeoats.htm

rubadub

taconnol wrote: »

Would Flahavans Organic Jumbo oats be "live" oats?

I never heard of "live oats", I expect it is yeasts/enzymes or something. I imagine this steaming might kill it off though.

4. The pinheads are steam cooked at over 100 degrees celsius before being rolled into oatflakes.

Pinhead oats might not be steamed, you might be able to blend them into a flour and add to regular oats as a sort of starter culture.

El_Dangeroso

taconnol wrote: »

Would Flahavans Organic Jumbo oats be "live" oats?

I can't see toasting in their processes:

http://www.flahavans.com/home/makeoats.htm

They are steam-cooked which might destroy the natural phytase enzymes.

Tbh, I'm not even remotely an expert when it comes to grain fermenting as I just avoid them (I'm not very good at planning what I want to eat 14hrs in advance ).

You can buy phytase if you don't like the taste of yoghurt fermentation, which I know some people find a bit sour.

More info here:

http://ideal-health-care.com/2010/05/05/traditional-preparation-methods-improve-grains-nutritive-value.html

Red Cortina

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I do think coeliacs are a special case though, they have pretty damaged guts, so are probably reacting to the other proteins in porridge. Some coeliacs don't react to oats at all and some do.

Absolutely

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Check out the scottish highlanders in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/price4.html

They do pretty well on oats, teeth-wise anyway. Not as well as their grain-avoiding counterparts but they still eat a very nutritious diet (mmm..fish heads!).

I think it is the fact that it is extremely hard to find oats which have not been cross-contaminated with gluten that is the problem rather than the oats themselves. You can probably bet that those isolated folks in the Scotish highlands did not consume oats which had been cross-contaminated with gluten...

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I think if the OP is gonna spend all their time missing oats then there really are so many worse things you could do than have a bowl of porridge a few times a week, especially if they're fermenting it and eating a very nutrient-dense diet.

Absolutely:)

Sapsorrow

I crave porridge like crazy exactly once a month weirdly enough (no prizes for guessing when ) but they don't do my tummy any favours. I find oats really indigestible.

El_Dangeroso

Sapsorrow wrote: »

I find oats really indigestible.

Yep, me too, it just seems to sit in my stomach, same with rice.

hcass

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

There might be tiny amounts of gluten in oats but unless you're coeliac it probably wouldn't affect you, in any case you can get certified gluten-free oats.

The main thing with porridge is it should really be soaked or fermented overnight prior to eating it. That's traditionally how Irish and Scottish people ate their oats and for very good reasons, it reduces the lectins and phytic acid. In fact any healthy culture eats their grains as a fermented porridge. I would skip it for a few weeks to see if it gives you issues first but if you really love it there's no reason in my mind it can't be the 20% that Mark talks about when he says 80:20.

Fermenting is easy, tablespoon live yoghurt in water, pop in the oats and leave overnight at room temp. If you are just soaking with water then you have to use 'live' oats, as in ones that haven't been toasted.

Thank you for the tip, you are a wealth of information! I'm just about to sit down to a bowl of fermented oats this morning. And thanks everyone else for all your advice.

Thank you for the tip - yo