12 thoughts on “Oatmeal for Breakfast with all 6 Tastes”

1. Pingback: Good Feeling Place » Natural Home Remedies to Heal Ear Infections

2. Ok, so I have a couple questions…
   1) Does the amount of oatmeal you make feed everyone, including you and Candice? Or is it just enough for the kids?
   2) Did you ever make it with spelt? I have been using spelt flour to make muffins lately and they are a big hit.
   3) Do you still have your hand grinder? If so, if you are not using it, could I borrow it for a little while and see how grinding goes?
   4) Where do you get your grains?

3. Hi Sam,
   Here are my answers:
   1) One and a half cups is enough to fill 6 or 7 bowls. Candice doesn’t usually eat as early as the rest of us, but the kids and I share it (and there is usually some leftover in the pot for baby snacks later).
   2) I think I went through a can (88 oz) of spelt before, it’s very similar to wheat in how long it cooks and the taste of it.
   3) I think we still have the hand grinder. I’ll find it sometime during our move across town this month and save it for you.
   4) When we lived in AZ I ordered my grains from waltonfeed.com which is based in Idaho, but I’m thinking it would be good to find another source somewhere in the East since we live in NC now. We actually moved a couple 6 gallon buckets of wheat and rice with us last year, but we’re getting close to finishing that now.

4. “We got a poster that we put up in the kitchen which detailed the energetics of food, including many spices. ”

   Do you recall where you found the poster? I have been looking for one.

5. Hi Tara, thanks for asking. You can find the poster I mentioned by searching for “energetics of food” at http://www.redwingbooks.com.

6. Thank you for your quick response. I am absolutely positive I would have not found that without your help! 🙂

7. You’re welcome.

8. I got very hungry yesterday and went surfing for a new food recipe, found this one went to the grocery store, bought the ingridients and cooked it. It tasted delicious and I’m sure to be cooking this one again.

9. I’m glad you liked it Roy. 🙂

10. I just read through this again and realized I forgot to mention that I first pour off the excess water (with any bubbles and dirt that rise to the top) in the morning before adding more.

11. Just wanted to let you know: in devolved everyday ayurveda, this recipe is sound for health, and wholesome considering the amounts and variety of nutrients (so far as the primary minerals and vitamins are concerned). However, in old ayurveda, your recipe is contradicting itself energetically, and also in direction of movement. The oats will move down like a rock thrown into water, but the vinegar fumes upward, toward the brain, no matter the amount of cooking its been put through, so long as it’s in combination with cooked oats. As well, the vinegar is being added with too much salt — but it’s too much salt for two meals, regardless of one, and regardless of the addition of vinegar. Bicarbonate and salt — you have a (estimated) total of 2tsp salt. Just these four ingredients mentioned will cause the body’s energetics to pull apart and move into organs where they’re not at home. By traditional ayurveda, there is too much of salt, which with the vinegar produces ama, and because of contradictory nature of some combinations in your recipe, the body (unless thoroughly exercised or otherwise cleansed the same day) will both create more ama (than I just mentioned) and possibly be forced to store it due to strong vitiation of lower and upper kapha and bogging of vata. Oats themselves are not very good for vata — too difficult to digest, and they’re too cool (or cold if the wrong variety). Though, if cooked properly, with spicing and some ten-twenty grains of rock salt, along with non-soured fruit (fresh raisins, dates, or many others), and maybe some ghee or simmered cream, oats are very calming to those suffering of the imbalance which is vata, especially in the mind and nadis.

    The body needs all of the tastes, but not like you’ve created. Each food contains all of the tastes, even vinegar, but only to certain degrees, and sometimes the taste goes undetected, especially when the individual tasting the food has indulged in too much food or has been too stimulated or dulled to taste well, or especially when the individual has a blockage of supraclavicular pathways, or much of the time when the individual has all of the above problems and also a lack water element (as physical water and its associated chemical elements) in the tongue and mouth and throat, and a lack of earth for the sense of smell. A person subsisting on sattva foods who eats little more than a meal and a snack a day, and does everything right, can easily taste the sweetness and pungency of vinegar.

    Try to combine foxes with bears and cats with cats; that is oatmeal with spices and vinegar only with its ilk, and keep it for purgative and other medicinal use. When you can easily fix a specific imbalance with things like vinegar, it’s easy to forget that you’re only causing another imbalance somewhere else in the body. Mild foods feed children and keep them strong and intelligent and happy, but stimulating and dulling foods (dulling as you have made the oatmeal) will cause an acute negative effect leading to the opposite acute (sometimes prolonged, as in the case of coffee abuse) effect.

    I hope I have given you some information you didn’t have before! Maybe try experimenting further by yourself. Try reading the Charak Samhita, as it’s available for free in doable translations on the internet.

12. Hi CJ,
    Thanks for your thoughtful critique. I actually stopped using vinegar a long time ago because soaking in milk made it feel better when I ate it and only tried baking soda a few times (Candice kept telling me not to make volcanoes in my food), so I’ve updated the recipe above to reflect that. I’ve also added raisins (during cooking so they plump up) a few times so I’ll add that as an optional ingredient.
    Regards,
    Robert