Eating Oatmeal Every Day for a Month Could Transform Your Well-being

One plain bowl, every morning

We all know we should eat more fruit and vegetables. But one of the cheapest, simplest foods in the kitchen is easy to overlook: a plain bowl of oatmeal. It costs very little per serving, it takes about five minutes to make, and it has been a breakfast staple for generations. So what happens to your body when you eat a bowl of oatmeal every day for a month? Dietitians say the answer may surprise you.

Start with what is in the bowl. A typical serving of half a cup of dry rolled oats has about 150 calories, around 4 grams of fiber, and about 5 grams of protein. Oats are a whole grain, which means you eat the whole kernel, bran and all, not a refined flour. They also contain minerals such as manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, and zinc, and B vitamins like thiamine. Not bad for something that comes out of a plain cardboard canister.

The real star, though, is a special kind of fiber that oats are known for. It dissolves in water and turns into a soft gel in your stomach, and it is the reason scientists have studied oats so closely for decades. On the next page, we look at what many people notice in the first weeks of a daily bowl. And we saved the most surprising part for the last page.