Founder of Quaker Oats - Ferdinand Schumacher

Ferdinand Schumacher (1822–1908) was born in Celle, Hanover, Germany. He came to Akron in 1851 and there he started a small grocery on Howard Street. Ferdinand did not like to see his customers buying such deluxe and fancy foods. He thought it was a little sinful. Back in Germany in the grocery business, he used to sell a lot of oats, good solid grain that grew good solid people, and cost very little. America ought to be eating it. So, he put in a stock. German and Irish immigrants were his initial customers, since they were accustomed to eating oats and unused to the high cost of American meat.

The Quaker Oats Company traces its history back to 1854 when Ferdinand Schumacher built his first hand-operated mill in Akron. His mission was to introduce steel-cut oats to the American table at a time when oats were considered an inappropriate food for anything but horses.

He perfected two revolutionary milling processes—steel cut oats and rolled oats—and popularized the new breakfast product "oatmeal". During the Civil War, Quaker Oats' popularity mushroomed because of its ease of preparation on the battlefield.

By 1886 Ferdinand Schumacher was known as, “the king of Oatmeal”. He brought the world the cereal, “shoot form guns”, a process done only at the Akron plant.

Through various mergers and acquisitions, Schumacher's company became the "Quaker Oats" Company and the Akron headquarters continued to grow through the 1940's. For a number of years before the turn-of-the-century, Quaker Oats was the biggest industry and the largest single employer of the City.
Founder of Quaker Oats - Ferdinand Schumacher

Instant oatmeal

There are a variety of oats in the cereal section of grocery stores – steel cut, old fashioned (rolled), quick-cooking and instant.

A wonderful breakfast choices is oatmeal which us a very nutritious breakfast food. It is not only filling, but it tastes great and is now available in instant form which makes it easier to prepare.

Oatmeal is not only high in fiber and low in fat and cholesterol, but because it contains both soluble and insoluble carbohydrates, is slow to digest and therefore keeps one from feeling hungry too quickly. Oatmeal is also a great source of vitamin E, zinc, selenium, copper, iron, manganese and magnesium.

Instant oatmeal has been pre-cooked and is ready almost as soon as add hot water. Many brands of instant oatmeal contain excess sugar that people don’t need.

Parents may prefer the instant oatmeal because it is faster to prepare, popular with the kids, and there are several flavors to choose from.
Instant oatmeal

Ready to cook breakfast cereal

Some breakfast cereals require cooking: others are packaged ready-to-eat. Cooking time of these processed cereals had been greatly reduce and various ‘instant’ forms are available.

Ready-to-cook cereals are mainly wheat or oat products. Wheat or oat cereals consumed hot can take various forms, such as whole, cracked, ground or rolled cereals.

This breakfast cereals are typified by porridge, which traditionally is made from oatmeal or rolled oats.

Ready-to-cook or quick cooking rolled oats are oats groats that have been thinly sliced into 3 or 4 small pieces, then heated and prepared in the same way as old fashion oats.

The oatmeal is not cooked during manufactured unless heated to inactivate lipases and requires considerable cooking.

The process of include grinding or rolling cereals kernels allows for a quicker cooking time than for whole kernels.
Ready to cook breakfast cereal

Oatmeal for Your Heart

Oatmeal for Your Heart
In recent years, clinical studies have affirmed the ability of oatmeal and oat bran to reduce blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and generally reduce the long term risk of hart disease.

In recognition of these well-established benefits, in 1996 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted manufacturers/packagers of oatmeal the right to make specific health claim about this food, stating that diets high in oat meal or oat bran may reduce the risk of heart disease.

It was the first permissible health claim ever accorded to a food by the FDA, an agency that generally has favored drugs over natural substance.

In 1995, researchers at John Hopkins, in Baltimore, Maryland, reported that people who regularly consumed even a modest portion of oatmeal (one ounce cooked daily) had lower blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those who never ate oatmeal.

The study was based in the evaluation of 850 men, 17 – 77 years old living in China; their oatmeal consumption was 25 – 90 g daily.

The researchers stated that “the higher the oats intake, the lower the blood pressure,” regardless of other factors such as age and weight or alcohol sodium, or potassium intake, which are known to affect blood pressure.

According to researcher, it is oatmeal’s high content of water soluble fiber (beta glucan) that can produces the heart benefits.

A six-year study involving 22,000 middle-aged Finnish males showed that consuming as little as 3 g daily of soluble fiber (from the beta glucan fiber component of oats, barley or rye) reduce the risk of death from heart disease by 27%.
Oatmeal for Your Heart