Oats have mostly been known for their health benefits over the years. The main one being that they can help lower cholesterol because of the soluble fiber content.
Another benefit of the fiber content is that oats can help to make you feel full, so they can prevent overeating or food cravings for a decent amount of time after eating. They’re also low in fat, although I tend to enjoy it most with a layer of creamy, all-natural peanut butter and some local honey spread lightly over the top of my oatmeal. Without that, however, oatmeal is generally pretty low in calories, too, as long as you don’t use the flavored instant packs or add mass quantities of brown sugar and milk.
There may be another key benefit that most men might want to pay particular attention to, or at least your partner might want to know so that she can hide your stash of dried cereal. Oats appear to have an ingredient which can boost libido and sexual performance. Who knew?
According to Jerry Brainum’s article on Anabolic Plants in the December 2012 issue of Iron Man Magazine, an unpublished study reports a link between oats and testosterone in that avenacosides in the oats are shown to bind to, and thus interfere with, sex-hormone-binding globulin, which means that it can cause the production of greater amounts of active testosterone.
This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Sow your wild oats.”
Of course, this would also mean that there would be potentially great benefits to eating oatmeal as part of an exercise nutrition plan. With the added benefit of potentially increasing testosterone production, it seems a no-brainer to use it as part of a post-workout meal, and possibly even using it in a pre-training meal.
I’ll report back on personal findings… unless my wife does too good of a job hiding our oatmeal after reading this.