Food and  Nutrition

Food Face-Off: Which is Healthier? 3

By Amanda Oaklander
Wed, Jan 09, 2013

                    
                     

Steel-Cut Oats (1/4 cup, dry)	Category	Rolled Oats (1/4 cup, dry)
140	Steel-cut oats, also known as Irish oats, are a bit lower in calories	160
5 g	But they’re equal in protein.	5 g
27 g	And they have identical carb counts, too.	27 g
4 g	Oats are fibrous. Contrary to popular belief, not all steel-cut oats are higher in fiber than rolled.	4 g
0 g	Hardly any sugar here!	1 g
2.5 g	With identical amounts of fat,	2.5 g
0.5 g	…and a pretty negligible saturated fat content,	0 g
2% RDA	…is there even a difference? Not in the calcium department.	2% RDA
10% RDA	And the high iron levels are exactly the same!	10% RDA
	Cue the tiebreaker: Steel-cut oats sit lower on the Glycemic Index.
Steel-Cut Oats: 3	WINNER: STEEL-CUT OATS	Rolled Oats: 1

THE BOTTOM LINE: 

Either way you cut them, high-quality oats are a health food, providing you buy them free of sugar-laden mix-ins. But the key to which is healthier isn’t on the label: It’s the degree of processing. Rolled oats are steamed, rolled, steamed again, and toasted, says Andrew Weil, MD. Steel cut oats are just coarsely chopped, so they have a lower Glycemic Index—a measurement that predicts how much a person’s blood sugar will spike after eating. That’s a tiebreaker for us!

WHAT TO BUY: 

Buy your oats organic, and make sure yours have no added sugars, flavorings, or preservatives.

JUST SO YOU KNOW: 

We used ESHA research to obtain nutritional data. These figures reflect popular brands for rolled and steel-cut oats.