NHGR: Recommend oatmeal toppings

[mrs.jacinthe]

that don't involve sugar.

We're really trying to cut back on sugar/substitutes. However, we eat a LOT of oatmeal and my previous go-to was raisins, about a T of maple syrup, and cinnamon.

Honestly, without the maple syrup it's a pretty boring food combo - even with a TON of cinnamon. So I got to thinking - there HAS to be a bunch of other (semi-healthy) stuff to mix in and make some flavor. Right?

Help a girl out?

[wawa]

i like peanut butter in mine, which might be weird? I dunno. Involves sugar obviously since PB is sweetened. Unless you buys the fancy stuff.

How gung-ho are you with the sugar avoidance? Like, fruit products with no sugar added - are those ok?

[thewop]

Coconut?

[mrs.jacinthe]

Fruit is ok, for sure. We're avoiding the processed/straight-up stuff. Basically, we're avoiding the non-nutritional sugars.

[mrsemilys]

I just do cinnamon and choke it down. I'm not much help I guess

[jhawks482]

Why are you trying to get rid of maple syrup? As long as you get real, maple syrup- not the fake Aunt Jemima stuff, you shouldn't worry about it. It's whole, straight from the source.

[sierramist03]

I'm no help because I only eat the peaches n cream kind

[wawa]

You could try some sweeter fruits than raisins. Make yourself a date puree or use chopped dates. That'd be good with coconut too. Ugly and looks a bit like poo, but tasty.

Frozen berries cooked for a couple of minutes to break them down a bit. Stone fruits when they're in season.

Mashed bananas are nice and sweet too and mild enough in flavor to build on - cinnamon and some nuts would be good.

I think if you're cutting out sugar in other places eventually your palette will retrain itself not to expect the sugar taste and the fruit alone should cut it. A pinch of salt would probably help though.

[mrs.jacinthe]

jhawks - there's no real nutritional value in maple syrup. It's essentially just better-tasting sugar. And yes, we get the real stuff (R is from NH. We can't even consider the fake stuff. LOL) Because it has no nutritional value, it's not something we need to eat regularly. Especially NOT as regularly as we eat oatmeal (5-6x per week). Once in a while, fine. But 6x per week = too much sugar.

[boiler717]

Almonds and blueberries

[jhawks482]

Jan 11, 2013 13:38:46 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

jhawks - there's no real nutritional value in maple syrup. It's essentially just better-tasting sugar. And yes, we get the real stuff (R is from NH. We can't even consider the fake stuff. LOL) Because it has no nutritional value, it's not something we need to eat regularly. Especially NOT as regularly as we eat oatmeal (5-6x per week). Once in a while, fine. But 6x per week = too much sugar.

I gotcha. I used the fake stuff up until about 2 years ago! What about a ripe banana? We always have tons of ripe bananas on hand (we make smoothies daily) and they add a ton of flavor.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Hmmm, I'm liking all the ideas - keep 'em coming!

(PB & Banana oatmeal is in my future ... just saying)

[jr009j]

I do shredded apples and cinnamon. Shredding the apples makes its sweeter than chunked apples.

[kitty]

I do mashed banana and walnuts or unsweetened applesauce and cinnamon.

[darkling_glory]

I do peanut butter and raspberry jam. The jam has sugar I think, but I'm sure there are sugar free jams out there.

And I think a tsp of maple syrup each day is probably not too much.

[thewop]

This post has me wanting oatmeal for dinner....

[wawa]

Jan 11, 2013 14:38:58 GMT -5 darkling_glory said:

I do peanut butter and raspberry jam. The jam has sugar I think, but I'm sure there are sugar free jams out there.

And I think a tsp of maple syrup each day is probably not too much.

there are, but they're AWFUL. But all sugar free jams that I've seen have artificial sweeteners and taste like butt.

[redheadk]

I've made oatmeal with almond milk rather than real milk before and it was a bit sweeter, IMO. No idea about the sugar content of almond milk, though.

I like frozen berries that have been thawed on my oatmeal. When I was eating a ton of oatmeal when DD was born, I would just dump the whole bag into a container and keep it in the fridge. I'd put some berries on my oatmeal and a few spoonfuls of the juice. YUM.

[candreco]

pears, pecans, applesauce, dried cranberries (unsweetened)

[peach]

www.priorfatgirl.com/2011/07/another-breakfast-favourite.html