FEELING GOOD
Art by Joseph Thiel
Gimme The Feed Bag, Nellie,
Oat Bran's Back In Style
CAROL SORGEN
Special to the Jewish News
I
n our never-ending search
for the Fountain of Youth
— and clean-as-a-whistle
arteries — another seemingly
miraculous cure has hit the
grocers' shelves. Oat bran.
But is this new food craze all
it's touted to be, or just this
year's health hype? The
answer, according to experts,
is a little of both.
Oat bran is a soluble fiber,
meaning it dissolves in water.
Soluble fiber acts like a
sponge, soaking up water in
the stomach and small in-
testine. Researchers believe
that soluble fiber can lower
cholesterol levels by making
cholesterol in the diet
unabsorbable.
Soluble fibers in general,
and oat bran in particular, are
being credited with helping to
control blood pressure, and
assisting in the management
of diabetes and hypogly-
cemia.
While oat bran is the solu-
ble fiber of choice these days,
it is not the only soluble fiber
available. Significant
amounts can be found in
other oat products, barley,
chick peas, black-eyed peas,
kidney beans, pinto beans,
navy beans, and other
legumes, sesame seeds, green
peas, corn, sweet potatoes,
carrots, okra, zucchini,
cauliflower, prunes, pears, ap-
ples, Concord grapes, and
citrus fruits like oranges and
grapefruit.
The benefits of oat bran
have been cited by medical
reporter Robert E. Kowalski
in his best-selling book, The
8-Week Cholesterol Cure; in
The Low Cholesterol Oat
Plan by Barbara Earnest and
Sarah Schlesinger; and in
numerous articles in both the
medical and the popular
press.
In fact, the oat bran mania
has reached such heights that
if you're tempted to rush out
and buy it — you can't. It's
virtually sold out of every
major food store,
Everyone's talking
about (and eating)
oat bran, which
researchers say can
reduce cholesterol,
and the stuff is
becoming scarce at
the supermarket.
At Farmer Jack in West
Bloomfield, there has been
such a run on oat bran, say
store officials, that even their
supliers can't keep up with
the demand. "We sell
everything we get. Last
Thursday, we had ten cases
and by the end of the day we
were sold out," said the
manager at Farmer Jack in
West Bloomfield.
June Mahle, store manager
at Betty's Grocery Store in
Birmingham, also notes the
oat bran craze. "Since the
study on oat bran and the
publication of the The 8-Week
Cholesterol Cure the sales on
oat bran have tripled, along
with the prices," says Mahle.
Mahle mentions that the
store carries oat bran tablets
in addition to the cereal.
Some of the popular brands
are Mother's, Quakers, and
Arrowhead Mills. Super-
markets usually carry the oat
bran in the cereal aisle
because their boxes label
them as oat bran "cereal,"
and they can be eaten as a hot
cereal or used for baking. The
newest "oat bran hot cereal"
on the market is Sovex, made
by the Granola Company and
now being rushed to
supermarkets.
Those who have jumped on
the oat bran bandwagon have
found that the best way to
get the recommended daily
allotment — 2 to 3 ounces a
day — is to eat three oat bran
muffins daily, preferably
homemade ones.
A recent article in the New
York Times, however, in-
dicated a wide range in the
nutritional benefits of oat
bran muffins that are sold in
bakeries. Ideally, the muffins
should be low in fat, low in
sodium, and low in calories.
Unfortunately, the Times
found in a survey of 30
bakeries around the country,
many of the oat bran muffins
were more like dessert; and
their fat content was so high
that no matter how much oat
bran they contained, they
were no nutritional bargain.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
17-F