I’m not especially gluten intolerant. But I do like to avoid the insulin spike you get from starchy food with a high glycaemic index, essentially flooding your bloodstream with glucose to be inevitably stored as fat for a rainy day
The rate at which starch and other carbohydrates enter your blood stream as glucose is known as the glycaemic index, scaled from 0 – 100 and conveniently divided into three categories. Obviously the lower the index the healthier the food
| GLYCAEMIC INDEX | VALUE |
| High | 70 or above |
| Medium | 56 – 69 |
| Low | 55 or less |
The glycaemic index of unprocessed oats averages 58 putting it at the lower end of the medium category. Compare this with instant porridge oats which have a whopping 83 glycaemic rating!
Oats are also rich in soluble fibre helping to regulate blood cholesterol. And besides being delicious they are indisputably versatile
Tasty as it is there’s so much more to oats than porridge. Here’s the first of my non-porridge oat recipes. Great for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper: oat hotcakes
Gluten-Free Oatmeal Hotcakes
Equipment
- any heavy based pan or skillet
Ingredients
- 1 cup oat flour oat flour can be made really easily by milling oats in a coffe or spice grinder for a few seconds
- 1 small pot yoghurt or keffir dairy or vegan, eg soy or coconut
- 1 egg (optional)
- 1/2 tsp salt (optional)
- 1 tsp sugar of stevia (optional)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- milk or water dairy or vegan
Instructions
- mix all the wet ingredients in a bowl
- incorporate in the oat flour and other dry ingredients to obtain a creamy consistency
- rest for five minutes. Oats soak a lot of fluid and the mixture becomes much stiffer. Adjust the consistency to a thick pouring cream by adding more liquid or flour
- add spoonfuls of the batter to a medium hot skillet greased with a little oil or butter
- after a 2-3 minutes when the top is partially cooked flip them over and cook for a further minute or so
- serve them warm or at room temperature with your favourite sweet or savoury sides and toppings
