Steel Cut Oats Nutritional Value

Oats have been around virtually since time began and pack quite the nutritional wallop. However, oats didn't start to get cultivated for consumption and use until about 1000 BC. Originally, oats were fed mostly to animals and shunned as "barbarian food" by ancient Rome and Greece. Eventually, however, the Roman empire fell and tribes that did consume oats passed on their knowledge and heritage to the rest of the world. Oats began to be more routinely incorporated into the human diet and today are used in everything from puddings and baked goods to oatmeal porridges.

What Are Oats?

Oats are considered a "whole grain" and are chock full of valuable nutrients and soluble fiber that are good for the body. For this reason, oats are a great way to increase your intake of dietary fiber. An oat kernel, also sometimes called an oat groat, is made up of three distinct parts: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm."Oat groats" are simply a whole grain oat kernel with its husk, or chaff, removed.When discussing steel cut oats, they are basically oat groats that have been sliced with a steel blade into two or three small pieces. Steel cut vs. rolled oats have a chewy, heartier texture. Because of their distinct shape, steel cut oats must be simmered or soaked for longer, so that they soften up enough to eat.

The Nutritional Value of Oats

All types of oats can be a significant contribution to a healthy diet, especially for people who may have heart concerns or that suffer from ailments like diabetes.The nutritional value of oats is significant and offers many health benefits, such as lowering bad cholesterol levels (LDL levels) and decreasing your risks of developing heart disease. Oats can help decrease high blood pressure, as well as lower your risk of developing type-2 diabetes. This is due to the high content of soluble fiber that is found in oats, especially steel cut oats. If you struggle with weight gain or with losing weight, the high fiber content can also help you feel satiated for a longer period of time, reducing snacking and your overall caloric intake for the day. Steel cut oats, rolled oats, and even instant oats are all fairly well-balanced in their nutritional makeup. Oats are made up of roughly 66% carbohydrate, 17% protein, 11% fiber, and 7% fat. In terms of raw oats, 100 grams boasts about 10.6 grams of fiber and 16.9 grams of protein. One of the healthiest fibers found in oats is a fiber called beta glucan. In low concentrations, beta glucans are unique in that they form a gel-like substance that seems to lower cholesterol, reduce blood sugar and insulin levels after eating carbohydrates, and increase the excretion of bile acids. Beta glucans are thought to be associated with a myriad of health benefits, and it's what makes steel cut oats vs. rolled oats or instant oats so much more desirable.

Types of Oats

There are different types of oats. Though their general makeup is very similar in terms of nutrition, the way they are processed and made ready for human consumption varies.
Instant OatsInstant oats, though they may be somewhat beneficial, are the most processed of oats and contain the least amount of fiber per serving. These are the oats used in prepackaged instant oatmeal. Though this type of oatmeal is popular, it can easily become mushy the longer you cook it, and most brands have added salt and sugar that makes them the least healthy choice when trying to increase your grain intake.

Quick Cooking Oats

The next step up on the health ladder is "quick cooking" oats. These oats have been rolled thin and cut into small pieces. This is so they will cook faster while still retaining most of their nutritional value. Quick oats are often used to make oatmeal as well, and can also become somewhat mushy in texture if cooked too long.

Rolled Oats

Rolled oats, sometimes referred to as “old-fashioned” rolled oats, are oats that have been harvested, steamed, and flattened between rollers. Rolled oats are the same oats that are used to make quick cooking oats, and they are also great for use in cooking and baking or adding to things like yogurt and smoothies. You can prepare them with water or milk, and the resulting texture is soft and creamy. Rolled oats tend to keep their rounded shape and are frequently used in everything from cookies to nutrition bars, cereals, and breakfast bowls.

Steel Cut Oats

Steel cut oats are sometimes also called Irish oats. These oats are coarser, and the kernel of the oat is cut into only two or three pieces, using a steel blade. This is where they get the name "steel cut." These oats take longer to cook and may require some soaking beforehand. Steel cut oats are often used for porridge and cut oatmeal.

Steel Cut Oats Nutrition Facts

When it comes to nutritional value, metric by metric, steel cut oats are very similar to rolled oats and instant oats. The differences lie in the dietary fiber content of steel cut oats, as well as their density. The ratio of liquid steel cut oats is cooked with is higher than that of rolled oats, so the portion is larger. This means you can eat less of them and reduce your caloric intake, but still get the same level of nutrition as you would from rolled oats or instant oats. Plus, the density of the oats helps keep you feeling full. Another benefit of steel cut oats is that they take longer to digest, reducing their glycemic load. Because of how they rank on the glycemic index, they are great for people who suffer from diabetes, or who may be prediabetic. This is because unlike rolled oats, they don’t cause a big spike in blood sugar when eaten. When someone consumes foods that are considered low glycemic, it means that the rate the sugar is introduced to the body has been slowed down considerably. When someone consumes foods that are high on the glycemic index, it makes their blood sugar levels and insulin levels shoot up quickly. This causes cravings for even more sugar when the glucose levels begin to drop. When cooking steel cut oatmeal, its is important to know what you're consuming. Steel cut oats are low calorie, weighing in at only 170 calories per 1/4 cup serving of dry oats. They contain about 3g of fat and are low in saturated fat. They also contain no cholesterol and no sodium. Steel cut oats provide 5g of fiber per 1/4 cup serving of dry oats, which is about double the amount of fiber you can get from rolled oats. They contain 29g of carbs and also provide a healthy amount of calcium, magnesium, iron, antioxidants, and B vitamins. They also provide 158mg of potassium. As you can see, there are a variety of reasons why steel cut oats make a wonderful addition to a healthy and balanced diet. Steel cut oats nutrition is largely same as other oats in every way except the fiber content and density. The fiber content and density of steel cut oats are what makes them so filling and beneficial. The nice thing about steel cut oats is you can dress them up in several different ways. You can prepare them with water or milk and add a sweetener or spice of your choice to jazz them up. They are also great for a quick breakfast like overnight oats. If you really want to ramp up the nutritional punch, you can also include nuts, dried fruits, fresh fruits, and even things like chia seeds and Greek yogurt into the mix. No matter how you prepare them, you can't escape the goodness!

Climate Change?

Let’s come right out and say it: Anyone who still thinks climate change is a greater threat than climate policy to financial stability deserves to be exiled to a peat-burning yurt in the wilderness.
Lest you’ve forgotten, the world’s central banks and other regulators are in the middle of a major push to introduce various forms of climate stress testing into their oversight. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank, among others, want to know how global temperature variations a century hence might weigh on Citi’s or Barclays’ or Deutsche Bank’s capital and risk weightings today. The fad is for quantifying, with preposterous faux-precision, the costs of reinsuring flood risks or fire or the depressed corporate profits of a dystopian hotter future.

Well, if you seek “climate risk” to financial stability, look around you. It has arrived, although in exactly the opposite manner to what our current crop of eco-financiers predicted. Europe’s plight tells a tale that could become all too familiar in the U.S. soon.


The U.K. may be facing a wave of business bankruptcies exceeding anything witnessed during the post-2008 panic and recession. Some 100,000 firms could be forced into insolvency in the coming months, bankruptcy consultancy Red Flag Alert warned this week. These are otherwise healthy firms with at least £1 million in annual revenue. Business failures on this scale would dwarf the roughly 65,000 firms of any size that went under from 2008-10.


The culprit is energy prices, which the consultancy believes could account directly for around one-quarter of the possible insolvencies. These prices are rising for British businesses in intervals of several hundred percent at a time and sometimes with steep deposit requirements from utilities that fear precisely a wave of bankruptcies.


Matters are probably worse in Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy. Some 73% of small and medium-sized enterprises in one survey reported feeling heavy pressure from energy prices, and 10% of those say they believe they face “existential” threats to their businesses over the next six months. And that poll from the small-business association BMD, is the optimistic one. A separate survey published this week by the BDI, a major industry association, found 34% of respondents describing energy prices as an “existential challenge.” Business failures will ripple up and down supply chains and quickly into the banks.


European governments aren’t blind to the energy-price threat—an awareness that, perversely, creates a threat of its own. The only politically viable solution for this winter will be subsidies on a monumental scale. Hundreds of billions of dollars for households and businesses (and utilities) across the Continent have already been announced, and desperate capitals won’t stop there. This will require substantial borrowing on top of the fisc-wrecking bond issuance during the pandemic.


All of this adds up to an extraordinary threat to financial stability. Banks and other financial firms inevitably will find themselves right at the edge of the water if or when a tsunami of energy-price bankruptcies washes ashore. Meanwhile, they’ll be called on to mediate extraordinary levels of new government borrowing—on top of the additional borrowing governments normally do during recessions to finance social-welfare assistance. All of this while interest rates start rising after resting for more than a decade on (or below) the floor.


Does anyone know what exactly any of this will mean for the financial system? Of course not. No one has seriously bothered to “stress test” catastrophic increases in energy prices, even though the Bank of England claims to have modeled the economic impact of allowing global temperatures to rise by 3.3 degrees Celsius over the next few decades. By the way, the BOE also predicted the economic impact of the transition to a net-zero-CO2-emissions future would be modest.


Politicians are happy to blame Vladimir Putin and his Ukraine invasion for the current energy disaster. But what transformed that one-off shift in the relative price for energy into a global disaster was two decades of green-energy policy beforehand. In Europe, that includes a fixation on renewables incapable of powering industrial economies absent battery technologies that don’t exist, a refusal to tap domestic fossil-fuel reserves such as shale gas, and a deep and irrational hostility to nuclear power in many parts of the Continent.











This has created an energy system of dangerous rigidity and inefficiency incapable of adapting to a blow such as Russia’s partial exit from the European gas market. It’s almost inevitable that the imminent result will be a recession in Europe. We can only hope that it won’t also trigger a global financial crisis.

The Beef Tax: We're all paying it, every day. By Seth Godin

In the US, taxpayers subsidize the cattle industry with billions of dollars of tax money each year. Most of that goes to pay for feed crops, but there is also a huge allocation of public land for the grazing of cows. About half the land in the entire country is just for cattle.

In addition, a significant portion of the climate problem is directly caused by the effects of bovine respiration as well as the clear-cutting of forests for grazing worldwide. It’s like someone is dumping manure on your living room carpet and asking you to pay for it.

The end result is that whether or not you eat meat, you’re paying for it.

Beef is more expensive than we realize. And it’s also significantly less convenient than we give it credit for. Climate refugees, storm-damaged assets, the loss of life and homes… these are directly caused by the one billion cows that humans raise each year.

What would happen if we simply charged a fair price for the beef and milk that people consume?

The industry has done a great job of persuading people that beef is cheap, convenient, easy, luxurious, wholesome and benign. It’s none of those things.

I wonder how long it will take us to realize just how much it costs us.

[ed note: Beef or animal meat is a highly inefficient and costly source of protein]

Berlin Firefighter Challenge - The Premier European Event

This year was the 16th of a Firefighter Combat Challenge in the city of Berlin. Mike Weikamm, a Berlin firefighter wearing three hats, does an outstanding job, and this year was no exception. The last two COVID years were limited events held at the training academy, so that's why we're at 16 and not 18. Thanks to Mike's wife Anja for the photos. Mike assidiously maintains a precise representation of the Official Course in minute detail. In fact, at our last running in 2018, a woman who was riding the Hop-On Hop Off tour bus that runs past Postdamer Platz got off when she saw the event and started asking spectators if "Dr. Davis is here?" Turns out, she was the wife of one of our early sponsors; when she saw the course, she immediately identified it as "The Real Deal."

A Great American: Chief James "Jimmy" Jarboe

The legacy of the Firefighter Combat Challenge would not be complete without this anecdote from our first event at the University of Maryland's Fire and Rescue Institute. 

It was Sunday, in May of 1991. We have five jurisdictions in attendance. There was one lane. No electronic timing, no music, no banners. 

A small crowd, an editor from Fire Chief magazine and the local CBS affiliate's news crew. We did have the imprimatur of the DC Council of Governments (COG) Fire Training Officer's Sub-Committee, who had endorsed the event. 

After a briefing, we started the competition. And people started cheering, something that you'd never hear at a drill. 

As the competition progressed, the firefighters were getting the hang of it; watching the preceding competitors helped with techniques and times were getting faster.

Helping as a Course Marshal that day was Lt. Jimmy Jarboe- my training officer back in 1966 when I became a volunteer at the City of Takoma Park's Station 2. 

Jimmy had correctly anticipated that one of the competitors was about to lap the one in front. The last evolution was the Rescue Randy, a 175-pound, 100-foot dummy drag. And we only had one dummy, 

I asked Jimmy, "What do you weigh?" As it turned out, "175 pounds."

"Good," I remarked. "Lay down at the start of the dummy drag,"

The following competitor snatched Jimmy and passed the competitor in front of him. 

For the next 30 years, Jimmy and I would recount how he had saved the day and the race as the "175-pound dummy."

While in Berlin for our 16th Annual Challenge, I got a text from my son Brent. It was the image below. As soon as I saw Jimmy's picture, I knew it was bad news. 

It would take more space than I have to tell you of all of his great accomplishments in fire safety and public education. An obituary follows below. Chief Tommy Musgrove remarked at his funeral this past Sunday, "If the world was populated with Jimmy's, it would be a perfect place."

Chief James E. Jarboe, Sr. - August 15, 1938 - September 10, 2022

James E. “Jimmy” Jarboe, former fire chief and 65-year life member of the Takoma Park Volunteer Fire Department, passed away after a brief illness on September 10, 2022, in Bethesda, Maryland, at the age of 84. Chief Jarboe, who retired as fire chief in 2008, joined the fire department in 1956. At the time of his passing, he was the only member in the history of the Takoma Park Fire Department to hold every rank - Private First Class, Sergeant, Lieutenant, -Captain, Assistant Chief, Deputy Chief and Fire Chief.

In 1959, Chief Jarboe was hired as a career firefighter with the City of Takoma Park, a career that spanned A-early 30 years. Following his retirement in 1988, he continued serving the department as a volunteer and as a recognized state and national leader in public safety education. Chief Jarboe was awarded the Firefighter of the Year honor in 1993 by the Maryland State Firemen’s Association.

Together, with his late father, AJ, and deceased brothers John, William, Robert and Theodore, they combined for nearly 150 years of service with the Takoma Park Volunteer Fire Department.

Throughout his career, Chief Jarboe received many awards and accolades for his innovative approach to teaching fire and injury safety to both the young and the old. In 2004, Jimmy was named to the Maryland State Firemen’s Association Hall of Fame and recipient of the Marberry F. Gates Service Cup Award in recognition of his devotion to public safety.

In his “spare” time, Chief Jarboe served on many state and county fire safety committees as well as the City of Takoma Park Independence Day committee. He loved to interact with children and adults, especially during his many years of volunteer service at the Montgomery County Fair.

Chief Jarboe was also a life member and officer with the Takoma Park Lions Club, where he coordinated the club’s participation in the annual Halloween parade, Thanksgiving Day meals for families, and the Toys of Tots program.

James Jarboe was born and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland and graduated from Montgomery Blair High School. He served in the US Army as an MP. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Barbara.

Seth Goden: Fake-aceuticals

Of course, we’ve always had snake oil salesmen. We’ve always had patent medicines, odd electric probes and copper bracelets. That’s partly because placebos work and partly because when someone isn’t feeling well, it’s tempting to seek relief and belief.

In the last fifty years, peer-reviewed and tested medicine have gotten dramatically more effective at the same time that these regulated medicines have spent a fortune on ads and marketing. As a result, the sham snake oil purveyors have worked hard to copy the scientific umbra and language of tested and regulated treatments. And thanks to aggressive lobbying, in many countries, folk remedies are nearly unregulated.

So we’ve got greedy public pharma companies with a tested product and an ad budget that often exceeds their R&D budget. They’re using every tool they can to sell something expensive that sometimes works. And then we have folk medicine companies that are responding to the high prices and ad influx by raising their own prices and sharpening their own ads, blurring the gap and grabbing some of the trust that people have in verified and tested results.

Belief is useful, and placebos work. But you can see the widening gap here. It’s hard to tell from the website or ad which are the actual focused, tested, double-blind and effective treatments and which are simply scams. A cheap benign placebo is a bargain. One that costs too much or hurts you is not.

If someone tells you that they’re offering a diagnostic test of your micro-biome and has you send in a sample for scientific analysis and testing, it’s almost certain that they’re doing nothing of the sort. If there’s a simple device you can buy online for $100 or so, it is likely that it doesn’t cure pain the way they say it does. If a practitioner insists that they have powers that transcend the laws of physics or reason, they’re actually only offering you the power of suggestion. And yes, if a famous doctor insists that an expensive over-the-counter magical bean is what you need, think twice.

Regulated medicine has gotten dramatically more effective in the last few decades. Folk medicine hasn’t changed at all, even if it costs ten times more than it used to, and even if the packaging and hype are significantly more sophisticated.

And so: targeting people in distress, charging ever more and honing the sales pitch to make it ever sharper.

It’s a shame that the folks who do this don’t have the self-respect and generosity it would take to be honest about what they’re offering. Instead, they hide behind a facade of jargon and process that conceals the fact that they’re simply making it up. That oil isn’t essential, except in how it makes a profit.

There are few areas of our lives where we tolerate this much fraud. Because we really want it to be true.