1608. Oats are Highly Overrated

If you start your day with a bowl of oatmeal, you might want to reconsider. 

In today’s episode, Dr. Martin takes a stance against oats, calling them one of the most overrated breakfast foods. Contrary to popular belief, oatmeal spikes blood sugar just like soda does and offers minimal nutritional benefit compared to high-protein, high-fat options like eggs, bacon, and sausage. 

He also debunks long-standing myths about fiber, cholesterol, and even coffee—championing steak, butter, and full-fat foods as essential to combating insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

 

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

Announcer:  You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin:  Well good morning everyone. Once again, welcome to another live this morning, and let me answer a question. There's a couple of questions that came up yesterday on our private Facebook group. Somebody was saying, I don't know why it came up yesterday. Can't remember, but they were asking about oats. Can Dr. Martin talk about oats? Well, I have in the past a lot and they're highly overrated. Okay? You're not a horse. You don't need oats. Okay? There is some testing that was done several years ago because I actually talked about this on my radio show, so we're going back at least 10 years where they did blood sugar tests and I'm sure it's easy to do. They just did the blood sugar.

When you eat oatmeal, your blood sugar goes crazy. You might as well have a Pepsi, guys, okay? You might as well just sit down in the morning and drink a Pepsi as far as your blood sugar goes, because oats and oatmeal, it's been around for a long time and people, while there's two big reasons why you want to eat it, fiber, and they actually have a heart on the box, it'll lower your cholesterol.

Why do you want to do that? Fiber, and you know me, fiber's highly overrated. They want you to eat that for fiber and lowering your cholesterol. It's a good thing to eat in the morning. No, it's not. It's one of the worst things you can eat in the morning. You are far better off having bacon than oats and oatmeal. Bacon won't spike your blood sugar at all. It's full of protein and full of fat. You want fat and protein, not carbohydrates. I mean, you have a little bit of protein in oats, but not enough. You're not a horse. You don't need it. Oatmeal is way overrated. I don't recommend it. And it was amazing when I used to do surveys on what people would eat in the morning. I'd say, well, no wonder you've got metabolic syndrome. You don't realize it. You're making the wrong choices in the morning.

Even breakfast, guys. I mean, if you're not going to eat the right foods, then skip your breakfast. A lot of people do. I'm all right with that. I'm not saying to do it. If you feel better eating, but eat the right thing. Bacon, sausages, eggs. Don't be scared of eggs. Don't be scared of bacon. People are because they've been duped. Don't be scared of that stuff. Don't fear, okay, don't fear. And I know Dr. Martin, what about the nitrates? What about those things? Well, what about them? I know people that will not have bacon because of nitrates. I said, well, it's a good food, man. It's got oleic acid, olive oil's got oleic acid. Bacon's got oleic acid. I love olive oil. I love bacon more. Bacon's better for you than olive oil, and you can have olive oil. You look at a sausage, it's better for you.

We live in a world, guys. It's a scourge in our society today. It's a scourge. It's insulin resistance. It is so prevalent. And again, I always bring you back to that 93%. They're on the Titanic. Sausages help you to get off the Titanic. So does bacon. I better limit that. Why do you want to limit it? You've been duped, you've been lied to, and nothing in the morning. If you're not eating eggs, if you're not having meat and you're not having good dairy, then don't eat. Think of what you can do in the morning to start your day that is so good for you. I used to tell my patients this. You like bacon and eggs? Oh, I love bacon and eggs. Somebody said to me one time, doc, I get tired of bacon and eggs. I said, what? I am 73 years old. I'm not tired of bacon and eggs. I don't know where we got into this variety thing. Why? I'm not tired of bacon and eggs. It's like asking me, doc, are you tired of coffee? No. I got to have it every morning. Yeah, I have coffee seven days a week. Don't you? Tired of it? I'm taking my vitamin C.

People make the wrong choices. It's unbelievable. I watch people go to the grocery store and watch what people put in their basket, put in their cart for breakfast. It's incredible. Okay, an English muffin. I don't care if it's a French muffin, it ain't no good for you. Yeah, but it's whole wheat. So what your blood sugar is going to spike big time with that. Why do you want to start your day on the wrong foot? If you can change that first meal of the day, either skipping it if you can. You know me in intermittent fasting, I like it, but really I'm not dogmatic about it, okay? I'm not. I know diabetics, for example, or people, they have a tendency to get into hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, whatever. You got to have breakfast, but eat the right things. There's nothing better for you in the morning for you to have bacon and eggs or sausages and eggs or steak and eggs. My grandmother used to like that. Steak and eggs giving me steak eggs, okay?

No, but seriously, ham. You know how good that is for you. Okay? Now, in the produce, I can live with a full fat Greek yogurt. Nothing added to it. I can live with that. I can encourage you if you want something to drink, Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie with heavy cream. You can put a few berries in there. It's so good for you. Someone calls you fat head. Take it as a compliment. Start putting fat in your diet. Fat and protein. It's the way you were designed to eat. Start your day on the right foot. I doubled down on that, guys, because you have to undo lies. Lies and more lies. People have been lied to in nutrition. And even today, if you took 10 gurus, if you took 10 dieticians and you took 10 PhDs in nutrition like mine, nine of them would tell you what I'm saying to you isn't right, cause they drink the Kool-Aid guys. They drink the Kool-Aid, they're still drinking it.

You know, someone put something up yesterday on a private Facebook group about coffee, and I answered because I saw it. I didn't give them a 50 minute dissertation. I could. Someone was saying, I can't remember a Dr. O'Neill or something that coffee leeches out your magnesium and I don't know, I can't even remember exactly what was said. Okay? And if I had time, I would've answered that false statement. And let me just say this, and you guys know this, if you've followed me forever, okay? I've been defending coffee since the cows came home, which is a long time ago. 50 years, one of the few. It's acidic. It's a diuretic. It takes away your minerals. That's what this doctor was saying or whatever I said went a hundred percent wrong. And guys, I've been saying that forever. Coffee is good for you. The more they study coffee. And I was always defending it because I knew it was a powerful phytonutrient.

I always look at coffee as a bonus. What do I mean by that? Well, it's a medicine that you enjoy, a medicine, it's a supplement. Coffee is a supplement that's almost as good as any other supplement on the market. Okay? What would I put ahead of coffee? Not much. Imagine you can start your day with something that's so good for you. Coffee, anti-cancer, anti-aging. One of the best prebiotics. I mean, the number one prebiotic is steak. People talk about prebiotics all the time. Dr. Martin, what about prebiotics? Are you drinking coffee? Yeah. Well, microbiome love it. Are you eating steak? Yeah. Well, your microbiome love it. Guarantee. The best fiber in the world is coffee. What? Yeah, is the best. Limit your drinks to what? Water and coffee. Okay, you can have Dr. Martin's perfect smoothie.

You want a meal replacement? And people have asked me about that too. Doc, what about meal replacements? Make yourself a perfect smoothie. Okay, kids, I know it's summer, but when they go to school, they're usually so full of sugar. It's incredible. Okay, so again, I was saying like coffee doesn't leach out your minerals. Coffee has 1,000, 1K, a thousand phytonutrients, and I've been defending it when people wouldn't defend it. Coffee's not acidic. They got a basic understanding of things and they don't finish out their thinking. The bean, the coffee bean. It's acidic. Yeah, but when you drink it, your body turns it alkaline, it does. Your body buffers it. It's alkaline, not acidic. It's only acidic in the cup. Once you drink it, your body turns alkaline.

If you're interested in pH, what's acidic and stays acidic? Sugar. So don't put sugar in your coffee, okay? So don't fear coffee. Fear oatmeal. You got oatmeal in your house? Throw it out. You don't need it. You never need it. Don't start your day with it. My generation and my parents' generation, they loved oatmeal and then they put a heart on the box. Why do you want to lower cholesterol? I always ask people that question. Okay? Don't fear cholesterol. Don't fear it. Why? Well, your body makes it. You can't live without it. Why do we want to hammer it down? It hasn't done a thing to heart disease by hammering. Well, as a matter of fact, it's made it worse. The whole premise is wrong.

And when I look at blood work, and I did for years, I was always looking at triglycerides. Doctors hardly look at that stuff. And HDL, I wanted your HDL, your cholesterol, HDL, to be higher than your triglycerides. Or at least even. You're in trouble when your triglycerides are high and your cholesterol is low. I hate to say it, 99% of all cardiologists are wrong. But guys, it doesn't mean they're not smart. It's the way they've been trained. So to them, cholesterol is the boogeyman. Salt, they got salt wrong. It's not salt that raises your blood pressure. It's sugar. They got butter wrong. Did they not? Butter. Look at it. It's fat. It's going to clog your arteries. Wrong. It lubricates your arteries. Butter's good for you.

Put butter on your eggs, not on your toast. Get rid of the toast and the English muffin and put butter where it belongs on your eggs and steak. Cook it in butter. They were wrong about that. They were wrong about butter, weren't they? Margarine imagine. Imagine telling anyone on the planet that margarine is good for you. They still got it in the grocery stores. There should be a big X on margarine. Like don't touch this stuff with a hundred foot pole. Bugs won't eat it, but we do. How silly is that? They got that wrong. They got salt wrong. They got cholesterol wrong. Doesn't mean they're not smart, it just means they're wrong. Okay? If you are having a heart attack, you want a cardiologist, but when it comes to food, they don't know what they're talking about. They don't get any training in it.

My audience knows more about food than 99% of every cardiologist on this planet. Imagine that. Will it change in my lifetime? I don't know. I'm not holding my breath, guys. I'm not holding my breath. Don't fear cholesterol, okay? Don't fear coffee. If you spend your time on the internet, you're going to get people telling you don't drink coffee and easy on the bacon. They look at bacon and all they see is grease. Okay? They see grease. They don't want you to eat grease. I do. I want you to eat it. It's good for you. Anyway, okay guys, tomorrow's Q and A, so it's not too late. Get your questions in to info@martinclinic.com, info@martinclinic.com if you want your question to be answered on Q and A tomorrow. Okay, we love you dearly. Talk to you soon.

Announcer:  You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!