Oats Are Your Canvas (On The Go): Oatmeal Toppings & Memories

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Oats are your canvas: a way to start your day with mindfulness, creativity and being present. At the same time no matter how fancy you get with your oats, there’s rustic simplicity to them that feels like home. It brings me right back to a cold winter day, early alarm – time to get up for school, cold in the room, pitch dark outside, body begging to stay in bed… and then warming thought of a nourishing bowl of oatmeal changes everything, and suddenly… I’m ready to do this.

Another flashback: my grandpa that we lovingly called Viva (short for Vitaliy) cooking up simple oats with milk and raisins, and eating straight from the pot. There’s something about this wildman move that connects me right back to my cheerful, loud, always singing grandpa.

Confession: I’m a weirdo and I love cold oatmeal. In my eyes, unfinished morning oatmeal makes the perfect cold snack later in the day. Or the next day. I said it! Naturally, Bircher muesli and all kinds of overnight oats (including chocolate bircher) are right up my alley. The convenient thing is that you don’t actually have to eat soaked oats cold. You don’t have to spend time cooking them, just warming them up does the trick.

Pre-mixed oats cups come handy on nights when I don’t feel like assembling my own overnight oats creations. They already have a perfectly crafted combination of nuts, seeds, superfoods and (if you’re lucky) chocolate, like in Modern Oats’ chocolate cherry cup.

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I take the cup — a mixture of certified gluten free oats, cherries, coconut, almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and other goodness, pour over some nut milk (hot or cold), and stick them in the fridge overnight. In the morning, enjoy them straight out of the cup for an on-the-go option (perfect post-workout, you can even add in an extra scoop of plant protein), or get crafty and all the toppings.

Note: if you’re sensitive to sugar or prefer a different sweetener, you can strain out the tiny bit of cane sugar in Modern Oats.

Some of my favorite oatmeal toppings, whether for overnight oats or good old plain oatmeal are: