Description
Oat bran is the cover of oat grain. Bran is not a food in the classical sense of the word, because unlike ruminants, humans do not have enzymes for its degradation. However, this gives them unique properties. Oat bran runs through the entire digestive tract – from the mouth, where they are irrigated with saliva, to the large intestine, where they fulfill the role of filling, resisting all chemical and physical attacks in their path.
What makes oat bran unique is its high content of water-soluble fibers. Fiber (fiber) is of two types – soluble and insoluble, with those in wheat bran and most plants being of the second type. Soluble in water are oats and pectin, which gives the healthy properties of apples. However, pectin fibers are much harder to extract and separate from fruit sugar.
Insoluble fiber suppresses hunger and improves intestinal patency, but irritates the more sensitive intestines. Owing to their solubility, oat bran absorbs, retains and adheres to themselves the substances with which they come in contact. They can swallow fluid 30 times larger than their own. Thus, passing through the 10-12 meters long small intestine, the bran take in some of the ingested food and take it out of the body.
Oat bran helps to lose weight, taking away some of the calories from the diet (though small) and increasing the volume in the stomach, creating a feeling of satiety. It is good to drink water along with their consumption. They can be heat treated and cooked with a lot of sweet and savory foods, which are a good substitute for hunger for carbohydrates on a diet. Oat fiber fibers have the ability to slow down the flow of sugars into the bloodstream and hence the release of insulin. Oat bran also helps to shed some of the fat, vegetable or animal, that we ingest with food. And last but not least, thanks to the water they contain, they prevent many constipations accompanying constipation.
Cholesterol that clogs the arteries is the number one enemy of modern society, and is credited with half of deaths. And doctors are increasingly finding bad cholesterol in the arteries and very young people.
How do bran clean up bad cholesterol? When it enters the small intestine, it is mixed with the food pulp. If you eat oat bran, cholesterol particles stick to them and penetrate their microscopic vacuoles. And because oat bran is not absorbed by the human body, they will pass through the small intestine, then through the colon and expel from the body that part of the cholesterol that has not entered the circulatory system. It is estimated that, if consumed regularly and in sufficient quantity, oat bran can reduce animal cholesterol by 15% – a reduction nearly equal to some of the medicines created for this purpose.
One of the most remarkable properties of bran is their ability to slow down the penetration of sugars into the body. By the same token, oat bran rewinds fast sugars in the small intestine and slows their penetration into the bloodstream. In yoghurt, in the form of pancakes, pans, bread, pizza dough. The minimum amount you need to consume daily is 3 tbsp. The most optimal doses are 1 spoon in the morning and 2 in the afternoon and evening.
