The importance of breakfast cereals

Breakfast has been long recognized for its important contribution to the nutrient intake of both adults and children. Breakfast cereals are crucial because they constitute the first meal of the day.

And they are considered highly nutritious because they do not contain significant amounts of fat and do contain important quantities of essential vitamins and minerals and are almost always served with milk, which complements their nutritional value.

Eating a cereal breakfast with milk is an effective way to increase calcium intake, which is an important mineral for children and teenagers for the development of strong bones and teeth.

Breakfast cereals are a good source of complex carbohydrates which include starch, NSP and resistant starch; many breakfast cereals are also fortified with a range of vitamins and minerals.

For example, some breakfast cereals are fortified with B-vitamins, iron and sometimes calcium, making significant contribution to the dietary intake of these micronutrients.

Fortified breakfast cereals provide on quarter of total iron intakes among young people. Fortified breakfast cereals are the single source of iron in the young person diet, providing more iron that meat and meat products, breads or vegetables.

The average antioxidant content of the breakfast cereals was higher that of the fruits and vegetables, except for berries. The antioxidant content of whole-grain cereal with raisins was only slightly lower than that of berries.
The importance of breakfast cereals

Oats cereal

The botanical name Avena sativa can be translated to ‘cultivated oats.’ Oats has been cultivated for over 5,000 years.

The oils in oats cause them to become rancid, so they must be processed more quickly than other grains. Steaming of oats will inactivate powerful lipase enzymes that could cause the oil in oats to oxidize and produce off flavors.

Today, the primary use of oats is as animal feed. Still, with the pressure of advertising, we are all aware of the nutritional value of oats in our diet. Oats have a higher level of soluble fiber than all other grains.

Among the benefits of oats in the diet, is the value that they have in lowering cholesterol, are soothing to the digestive process.

Oats can be used in soups, puddings, breads, crusts, topping and desserts.

There are a number of different ways that oats processed for cooking pleasure. Oat groats are the whole seed with only the outer hull removed. They are cleaned, dried and toasted to make the hulls brittle, then the two outer layers of the hull are removed.

It can be pounded with a wooden mallet or rolled on a flat surface with a rolling pin it will cook more quickly that it would in its original form.

Rolled oats are the familiar breakfast form. Rolled oats are made from grain that has been infused with steam and rolled flat between tow smooth rolls. The moisture from the steam keep the grain from fracturing while it is being rolled. The rollers can be adjusted to create a thin, quick cooking roiled oat, a regular oat or a thick rolled oat.

Quick cooking oats require less cook time because water penetrates the thin pieces faster.

The finest form is as flour. Oat flour has been produced for use in flour confectionery. Oat flour contains protein in the range of 12-25%, considerably higher than other cereals.

However, the globulin fraction of the protein is the most abundant, leaving the potential gluten-forming proteins at a lower level than in soft wheat.

Oats cereal