Many, many people just hate porridge. They think it’s lumpy and gluey and yucky. It is if you don’t know how to make it.

First, do not use instant oatmeal in little packets. The flavours are creepy, the porridge like babyfood. Maybe that’s what you like, but it’s gross.

Second, don’t get quick-cooking oatmeal in the bag or box. This becomes glutinous almost immediately.

Third, don’t make it in the microwave. The microwave is an evil necessity. I avoid it as much as possible, even though there is one here. God meant food to be eaten raw or cooked over heat, not boiled from within.

Buy good-quality oatmeal. I get mine from my favourite store, Bulk Barn. It sounds like they sell laxatives, but it is a great place to buy fresh binned foods in the amount you need. All the Bulk Barns I’ve visited have been clean, well-organized and diligent about food safety. Stuff doesn’t sit for weeks or months. If you are traditional or sentimental, or there’s no good bulk foods store near you, buy it in that box with William Penn smiling at you (Quaker Oats).

You need the flaked or rolled oats, stuff that looks like real oats crushed flat. Oats have to be crushed or cooked to be digestible to humans. Oats (avena sativa) is a naturally healing herb. It is good for those who have been through emotional trauma, suffer from shingles or other nerve-involving illness, and is soothing to the digestive tract. Many of us have irritated stomachs and bowels from coffee, soft drinks, fried foods, white sugar and stress-induced acidity. While cutting back on these foods, eating nourishing porridge will help heal the damage.

Take equal amounts of water and oatmeal. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the oats slowly, trickling them in from the measuring cup. Stir constantly while cooking at low temperature. You can add a little salt, too, if you like. I don’t. It doesn’t take more than about five minutes before you have a thick porridge, and you can take it off the heat, since it will continue to set and thicken. If you like thinner porridge, use more water. I don’t recommend using less water, or you get a substance like gritty concrete.

Now add your favourite flavourings. I use cinnamon and nutmeg. Dried fruit, whether raisins, cranberries, blueberries, apple chips or banana, is added now, not at the beginning of cooking. Serve with honey, brown sugar, or maple syrup, and milk if you like that. Don’t let it sit on the stove for more than a few minutes.

Oatmeal is cheap,plentiful, and very nourishing to the body. I recommend we eat more of it, rather than the sugary, salty, fatty, expensive, nitrate-filled breakfast foods we seem to prefer.

Breakfast foods containing oats are just not the same, including that popular O-shaped cereal. The oats are probably overprocessed and a lot of their healing qualities are lost. The packaging is expensive, the promotion is expensive, and unless you are about six years old, they are disgusting eaten dry. Rolled oats are cheaper, better, and take up less room in the cupboard. They are closer to their original state, meaning that extra energy costs haven’t been committed. If you can, buy rolled oats at a local mill (there are a few traditional mills scattered throughout the continent.) You’ll find the flavour is incredible when the oats are really fresh.