The Overnight Oats Formula
You’ll want this one in your recipe book.
Why? Simple:
Easy
Nutritious
Delicious
Oats have been shown to help lower the “bad” cholesterol (LDL) (1), as well as being an excellent source of soluble dietary fibre (especially beta-glucan) (2). Beta-glucans vary in their chemistry depending on their source (yep, they’re found in a number of plants and fungi). While used in many applications including medicine, the beta-glucans from oats and other grains have been shown to reduce cholesterol (total and more so LDL) and blood glucose. (2)
Lastly, it’s another pre-biotic source for the gut microbiota which love to return the favour to us when we feed them some lovely (& diverse) types of fibre: short chain fatty acids. (3)
Ingredients & Directions
Estimated time: 5 minutes + 4 hours in fridge
Effort/Skill: Easy
Dry ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon, or your favourite spices
1/4 tsp salt - optional
1 tbsp sunflower or hemp seeds - optional
Wet ingredients
1 cup oat milk (or almond, soy, cashew, coconut)
1 tbsp nut butter - optional
1 tsp maple syrup - optional
1/2 cup frozen berries or fruit - optional
1/4 cup oat milk yogurt (or almond, soy, cashew, coconut)
Instructions
Place all ingredients overnight a jar in the fridge.
If you’re going camping, or traveling, jar up the dry ingredients. You can also add some powdered oat or coconut milk & then add water/juice to your mix.
Sources:
(1) Grundy MM, Fardet A, Tosh SM, Rich GT, Wilde PJ. Processing of oat: the impact on oat's cholesterol lowering effect. Food Funct. 2018 Mar 1;9(3):1328-1343. doi: 10.1039/c7fo02006f. Epub 2018 Feb 12. PMID: 29431835; PMCID: PMC5885279.
(2) Ciecierska A, Drywień ME, Hamulka J, Sadkowski T. Nutraceutical functions of beta-glucans in human nutrition. Rocz Panstw Zakl Hig. 2019;70(4):315-324. doi: 10.32394/rpzh.2019.0082. PMID: 31960663.
(3) Oniszczuk, A., Oniszczuk, T., Gancarz, M., & Szymańska, J. (2021). Role of gut Microbiota, probiotics and prebiotics in the cardiovascular diseases. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 26(4), 1172. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26041172
