The default Phase 1 breakfast. Takes five minutes. Keeps you full longer than toast. Cinnamon helps with blood-sugar stability, which matters when your pancreas is under stress.
Serves 1 · Prep 2m · Cook 5m · about 6g fat / 450 kcal
The fat math
About 6g of fat in the bowl, and nearly all of it is the oats. 80g of rolled oats is 5g of fat before anything else goes near it. That part you cannot cook out.
So the only real lever is the liquid. Made with 300ml of semi-skimmed milk, this bowl is 10g of fat. Made the way I make it, hot water first and a splash of milk at the end, it is 6g. Against a strict-phase budget of 20 to 30g a day, that difference is worth having.
Skip the instant flavored packets. The added sugar doesn’t help when your blood sugar is already touchy.
Phase & care: Phase 1 safe. Made with water instead of milk it gets even gentler.
Stepan’s shortcut: pour hot water over the oats first and let it soak in. Once it has, add a splash of milk around the edge for the creaminess. Same bowl, a fraction of the milk. Do it in the bowl you eat from and there is no pot to wash either: oats and boiling water in the bowl, microwave 3 minutes, let it stand while you make coffee, then the splash of milk, then banana, cinnamon and honey.
Ingredients
- 80g rolled oats, not instant flavored packets (about 1 cup)
- 250ml hot water (about 1 cup)
- 50ml skimmed milk to finish (about 3 tbsp), or a plant milk, see below
- 1 ripe banana, sliced
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp honey (optional)
Method
- Bring the water to a simmer in a small pot, or just boil it and work in the bowl.
- Add the oats. Stir and cook 4 to 5 minutes until thick, or let them stand and soak.
- Off the heat, stir in the splash of milk. Doing it last is the whole trick: the creaminess lands on top, so you need far less of it.
- Pour into a bowl. Top with banana slices, cinnamon and honey if using.
- Eat immediately.
Per serving: approx. 450 kcal · 6g fat.
Which milk
The carton matters more than the plant. Per 100ml, roughly:
- Water: no fat, no calories
- Skimmed cow’s milk: 0.1g fat, 35 kcal
- Unsweetened oat drink: 0.7 to 1.5g fat, 40 kcal
- Unsweetened almond: 1.1g fat, 15 to 22 kcal
- Unsweetened soy: 1.6g fat, 39 kcal
- Semi-skimmed cow’s milk: 1.8g fat, 47 kcal
Almond has ten times the fat of skimmed milk at a third of the calories. If you are counting grams of fat, skimmed dairy wins. If you are counting calories, almond wins. Pick whichever matches the problem you actually have.
Two warnings. Barista versions of oat and almond drinks have fat added so they foam, sometimes 3g per 100ml or more, so read the carton rather than trusting the plant. And coconut drink is the one to leave on the shelf, because its fat is mostly saturated.
If dairy has stopped sitting well since your attack, and that happens to plenty of us, unsweetened soy is the closest swap on protein and unsweetened oat the closest on fat. Either way this is a splash and not a cupful, so the gap between them barely shows in one bowl.
More like this
For lunch or dinner, try the chicken vegetable soup or the steamed cod. The full system, with the fat budget in grams and all 75 recipes, is in the book.
Not medical advice. This recipe reflects one patient’s low-fat approach grounded in published guidance. Fat tolerance is individual. Check with your own healthcare team before changing your diet.