What's for Breakfast: Oatmeal

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Mark Bittman on the op-ed page of the New York Times recently took McDonald's to the wood shed for offering customers "healthy" oatmeal that actually contains 21 ingredients, including lots of sugar.

I'm happy to report that schools here in the District of Columbia are still serving an unadulterated oatmeal made very simply with Quaker quick oats and water.

As you can see in the photo, it was served this morning with a cup of canned fruit and string cheese. A four-ounce container of juice also was available, along with plain low-fat or skim milk.

The kids don't exactly tear into the oatmeal. But it's certainly better than the stuff McDonald's is serving.

But schools can get oatmeal wrong, too. Here's a photo of a similar breakfast served at my daughter's D.C. elementary school last year. Yes, that big blob of stuff that looks like a tennis ball left out in the rain is actually a scoop of oatmeal. They were serving some pretty nasty turkey sausages the as well, along with chocolate and strawberry milk, which have since been removed from the menu.

Best advice where oatmeal is concerned: keep it simple.