At our house, we eat a lot of oatmeal. The kids like it, it’s a quick and easy hot breakfast, and it’s one of the healthiest breakfasts one could eat. A lot of times when we mention oatmeal to people, or if people are over at our house on a Saturday (a designated oatmeal day), they always more or less have the same reaction: “Yuck, really? Oatmeal?” Then we proceed to get out all the toppings and condiments that we put on the oatmeal, and they say, “Oh, well, that’s not really oatmeal then, is it?”

Well, why the heck not?

I remember eating oatmeal at home as a kid. We either put honey in it or cinnamon and sugar. Maybe a little fruit or something. I think that’s how people think of oatmeal; sort of bland with an unappealing texture that gets old pretty fast.

But who said it has to be that way? There are an infinite combinations of things you can put in your oatmeal. We usually use some combination of walnuts, pecans, dried cranberries, raisins, honey, maple syrup, applesauce, peanut powder, chia seeds, cinnamon, diced apples, strawberries, and bananas. And you certainly aren’t limited to those things. The nuts give it some texture, and if you use fruit, you usually don’t need a sweetener. It’s not uncommon to have a bowl that’s about half oatmeal and half “other stuff”. But, 1) you’re still eating oatmeal instead of something else, like sugar cereal, and 2) the “other stuff” is generally pretty healthy as well (I’m not going to complain about my kids eating bananas and nuts for breakfast!). And if adding in some applesauce encourages you to eat oatmeal, then it seems like a pretty good deal.

So my contention is, if you’re not eating oatmeal, you’re probably not thinking creatively enough about it!