Editor’s Note: Here is a recent Substack column written by Lizzie Simon, a frequent contributor to ConvergenceRI. Her dialogue with an “oatmealologist” offers insights into the many healing opportunities provided by oatmeal in the fight against autoimmune disorders.

NEW YORK CITY – In September, after six months of symptoms, I finally got a diagnosis and started treatment for a rare, aggressive, autoimmune skin disease – called Morphea – and I started getting obsessed with oatmeal. Were these two things connected? Of course they were.

I had hitherto enjoyed a casual relationship to oatmeal, microwaving a packet, adding a chopped banana, and – blithely – feeling virtuous about it.

Now I was making a big weekly batch on Sunday with 13 different ingredients – and in accordance with an anti- inflammation diet that I had been on since my symptoms began in March.

No one knows what causes autoimmune diseases – or knows why exactly they are on the rise. But many researchers think inflammatory foods and microplastics may play a part. And, ridding myself of inflammatory substances was something I could actually address on a daily basis.

I’ve lost 25 pounds; my fall clothes were all too big. And I was starting a very unpleasant and side-effect-ish regime of high-dose steroids and immuno-suppressants designed to shut down my over active self-defenses.

It was a wild month to be a cell or an organ or a thought in my body. I had to surrender to being as undefended as possible, a notion that – then and still – never fails to make me queasy.

Oatmeal met me there, and in my obsession, I remembered that a writer friend and her husband had visited me and my husband upstate, and we did this lovely thing where we made them dinner at night and they made us breakfast the following morning.

My friend was obsessive about the oatmeal she was preparing for us, and she asked us a lot of questions about our preferences, of which I had, like, none, because someone with a superficial relationship to oatmeal doesn’t care. I had been in the presence of oatmeal excellence and was too dumb to even know it.

As October approached and my own game advanced, I hoped that she could be my oat coach and that she would allow me to share her wisdom widely with my Substack readers.

She said, “No.”

“I mean,” she continued, “we could have the convo, and it could be transcribed, if I was ‘anonymous.’ Seriously, I don’t want the extent of my thoughts on oatmeal to be known – the world is not ready for my knowledge, and I would be looked upon as a freak the way Jesus and Spiderman were in their day.”

So, what follows is our intimate, far-ranging conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

LIZZIE: So, recently I remembered that breakfast that we had that was so lovely when you came upstate and made us an ‘oatmeal.’ I remembered that you asked us a lot of questions about our preferences. But I wasn’t in my deep oatmealing era yet. I thought of oatmeal as the thing in packets that I microwave at work.    
ANONYMOUS (shudders).

LIZZIE: So when I got deeper into my oatmeal, I naturally thought: I gotta go back and ask her, like, what…    
ANONYMOUS: …The game is all about.

LIZZIE: Yes, exactly. I will cede the floor to you.    
ANONYMOUS: Well there’s oatmeal practice but also oatmeal theory; I don’t fulfill all of my own ideals. And some of it I’m not sure should be fulfilled. I should ask: What is your current oatmeal practice?

LIZZIE: I make a batch of steel cut oats once a week, and then I put it in the fridge, and I heat up portions in the morning. I make it with water and almond milk, a ton of cinnamon, ground-up flaxseed and peanut butter. I like prunes and raisins, and then I add fresh fruit.    
ANONYMOUS: Where do these steel cut oats come from?

LIZZIE: For a while I was doing Bob’s Red Mill. I actually bought the Whole Foods organic ones and really like them, really like the texture of them, although I hate giving any of my money to Bezos. I’d like to source them from a farm – do you know of one?    
ANONYMOUS: We’ll get to that.

LIZZIE: I'm also thinking about oatmeal all the time. I don't know how to talk about my oatmeal practice without talking about the accompanying psychological comfort and preoccupation, the day-dreaming, that it occupies in my head. I really do go to bed thinking in this pleasant way, I’m gonna get to have oatmeal in the morning, and at some point when I wake up, I’m like, Oh, I get to have oatmeal soon.    
ANONYMOUS: Interesting.

LIZZIE: Today I found myself thinking about the oatmeal that I want to make at a writers’ retreat I’m leading in January in Sonoma County. How can I make oatmeal for all my guests on the retreat without committing to something that’s insane for me to be trying to do while I’m leading a writer’s retreat?

And what fruits are in season in January when we’re gonna be there – oh yeah, persimmon. Oh, my God! Persimmon would be so interesting in oatmeal. And I’m just going on and on and on like that in my head. And it’s only October. So this oatmeal thing, it’s bigger than just, like, what I’m having for breakfast.    
ANONYMOUS nods.

LIZZIE: I think it very much relates to the fact that I’m dealing with an autoimmune disease and spent much of the year incrementally losing control of my hands, feet, wrists, ankles, forearms, and shins.

Throwing myself into the anti-inflammatory diet as a way to curb symptoms and regain some control. And, as you know, I cut out so many foods. I cut or cut way down on gluten, dairy, fried foods, alcohol, fatty meat, red meat, artificial sugar, added salts, anything with weird additives and everything [that is] highly processed.  

I eliminated plastic storage containers and cups and, as much as possible, food that is packaged in plastic, because of all of the terrifying stuff I read about microplastics and cancer, heart and autoimmune disease. I cut so many things out.    
ANONYMOUS: You would be shocked to know how influential your anti-inflammation diet has been on me.

LIZZIE: Really? Yeah, I didn’t know that. Well, I’m in love with it, with the energy it gives me, with the way the food I’m eating is taking care of me instead of, you know, burdening my organs.

I actually have to restrain myself from evangelizing. When I told my rheumatologist about what I’ve cut out, she was like: What’s left? Asparagus?

She’s a straight-up Western Medicine woman. My autoimmune dermatologist is a straight-up Western Medicine woman, too, and she is also very disinterested in what I am eating and not eating.

They’re like: Okey dokey, sure, go ahead and cut out pasta and Skittles and hamburgers and brie, just be sure to take 60 milligrams of steroids and the chemo drugs I’ve prescribed. But there are plenty of foods left, in addition to asparagus, and oatmeal is one of them.    
ANONYMOUS: But the oatmeal “obsession” - your word, not mine - started after the period where you were losing control, correct? It started once you had a diagnosis? When you started treatment?

LIZZIE: Correct. But taking these medications, it’s another form of losing control. They’re intense. They’re getting your body to surrender its over-active defenses. The side effects hit your skin, your gut, your moods, your hair, your nails, your stamina, and your sleep. So the oatmeal came to power during a transition from one bodily chaos to another. And, in the midst of intense national and global chaos, too.    
ANONYMOUS: Your focus on oatmeal may have everything to do with the fact that your body recognizes a hero. And, I’m so glad you’re done with those hideous packets.

LIZZIE: Yeah. Me, too. Gross. They’re highly processed!    
ANONYMOUS: Yes. But even with so-called organic oatmeal, Bob’s, Bezos’, you really don’t know how long that oatmeal was hanging out in a factory somewhere, and on a truck somewhere, and in the market, and in plastic.

What was sprayed on them while they were growing – do you really even know? Do we really trust who we’re dealing with here? With oatmeal, the taste, the nutritional value and the digestion process greatly varies depending on how the grains are handled.

LIZZIE: That’s what I need to understand better.    
ANONYMOUS: Sure. But first a minor tweak. There are those who believe that ground flax seeds should be ground freshly.

LIZZIE: Oh?    
ANONYMOUS: Grind it last.

LIZZIE: Oh!    
ANONYMOUS: Daily. I’m just flagging that.

LIZZIE: OK, got it.    
ANONYMOUS: Well. OK. I mean if it’s in the refrigerator it probably doesn’t make a difference. I’m so enjoying having an opportunity to be super bossy about oatmeal. I can’t even tell you.

LIZZIE: It's awesome for me, too.    
ANONYMOUS: And when you talk about persimmons, do you know that sort of Japanese massaged, dried persimmon?

LIZZIE: No, I've never had that.    
ANONYMOUS: Check that out. It would be incredible in oatmeal. I have some in the fridge.

LIZZIE: Wow.  
ANONYMOUS: OK, so, in theory what one should be doing is getting oats and sprouting them. Then you would have to dry them. Then you would freshly roll them yourself.

LIZZIE: What is rolling an oat?    
ANONYMOUS: You know the kind of oatmeal you used to get in packets, those little flattened discs?

LIZZIE: Yeah, yeah.    
ANONYMOUS: It’s making those flattened discs. But you’re doing it freshly, not in a factory somewhere. Not packaging them in plastic and putting them on a truck and in a supermarket for weeks or months, where how much of their essence has escaped into the air? I don't know. You don't know.

LIZZIE: It’s true. So, do you use, like, a rolling pin?    
Anonymous: No, no, no. I have a little German machine. I have a little German oat roller, which took me years and years to purchase because they are $205. Now that I’ve done it, I cannot imagine life without it. I’ve made it for groups of people who have then gone out and gotten their own oat rollers.

[Lizzie smiles in a way that mildly irritates Anonymous.]    
ANONYMOUS: I see. We’re not gonna have this discussion if you sit there and grin.

LIZZIE: I'm sorry. I'm grinning because I know that in some moment in the near future I am about to purchase a $205 oat roller. That’s all. I'm not laughing at you. I’m laughing at myself, and at life.    
ANONYMOUS: Right. Well, before you buy a $205 oat roller you’re, like, This is clearly in the realm of nonessential purchases. The moment after you buy it, you’re like, Oh, this is absolutely an essential purchase.

LIZZIE: Oh, I’m ready to invest. I bought a new coffee grinder just to grind the flax because I wanted my flax seed to have its own dedicated instrument. I don’t need less ritual around oatmeal.    
ANONYMOUS: Well, buckle up.

LIZZIE: As far as I’m concerned, where oatmeal and anything good in my life is concerned, my attitude is: Let it expand. But let me ask you about something you said earlier. You mentioned you had friends over and you fed them your oatmeal and showed them how to grind oats. It’s interesting that you didn’t think to invite me but that’s not what I am addressing in this instant. You had an oatmeal party, basically, which is something, honestly, I've thought a lot about doing.    
ANONYMOUS: No, it wasn’t an oatmeal party. It’s just… sometimes people come over, you know? Sometimes I’m, you know, with a group of friends. You’re staying overnight at places and you brought your oat grinder.

LIZZIE: You travel with it!    
ANONYMOUS: It’s convenient. You toss it in the car. Can we get back to oatmeal theory? The point is in theory, everything you’re supposed to be doing is for maximal digestibility.

LIZZIE: OK.    
ANONYMOUS: And in theory this is the ancient way.

LIZZIE: OK.    
ANONYMOUS: But if you think about the goal of a grain… I mean, the grain thinks it’s in a meadow somewhere, and while a horse or some other animal is, you know, chewing it enthusiastically, the goal of the grain is to pass through the digestive tract undigested, and land in a pile of shit, where then, when the rain comes, it’s, like, Glorious!

LIZZIE: You’re saying the grains have a will to survive and propagate, which only happens if they get shat out not fully digested and put back into the earth. So they’re kind of built and willful about not being digested and us humans have to labor to wrest them from their will.    
ANONYMOUS: Right. Grains have, I forget the technical term, but they have coatings which are in a way mildly toxic that sort of help to prevent digestion. So you have to do some extra work to make the grain digestible.

LIZZIE: OK.    
ANONYMOUS: But today grains are being grown and processed in such a different way than they were for hundreds of years. And this may be why so many people are gluten intolerant, or sensitive, or finding they feel so much better when they go gluten free.

LIZZIE: So interesting.  
ANONYMOUS: We've thrown a lot of traditional practices for dealing with grains aside, and our health suffers. 

LIZZIE: That checks. Now that farming and processing and packaging practices are all gunning for profit, and shelf stability, and fast prep, we see increases in cancers, auto immune disease, obesity, heart disease, infertility, anxiety and depression. There’s Western science proving much of this - but I don’t see them advising on types of oatmeal or prescribing German oat rollers.    
ANONYMOUS: I will say that the same ancient grain foundation where I’ve gathered a lot of information is run by people who now apparently believe that there aren’t viruses. So. I’m perfectly willing to accept their essential premise, and to interrogate or discard some of the more fringe theories.

But, ideally, you grind the oats. You grind the oats, you roll the oats, and then you let them sit for on your counter, soaking in water with kefir or yogurt, or whey and so they do a mild ferment, which makes it slightly tangy. So then, at the end of that period of time, you rinse it.

LIZZIE: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yogurt? Kefir? Fermentation?    
ANONYMOUS: In theory I do this, and sometimes I actually do this or some version of it, or sometimes I just soak the oats overnight. I’m willing to concede that dealing with freshly ground whole grains all the time is not optimal.

LIZZIE: Can you make a big batch? Or, do you have to do all of that labor for every day’s portion of oatmeal.    
ANONYMOUS: You could totally do batches. There’s this whole description of the way that the Scottish traditionally handled their oatmeal. Supposedly, they would make a big batch, after having soaked it, and they would pour it into a drawer, like in a set of drawers. And so then it would sort of cool in the drawer, and you would just reach into the drawer and cut yourself off a big hunk of this oat mixture, and, you know, half live on it.

LIZZIE: That's living. I’ll have to Google “oatmeal in the drawer, Scotland.”    
ANONYMOUS: Do it, you’ll get results. It’s really fun just imagining these huge, perfect slabs. So yes, once you’ve done all the prep work, you can totally make a big batch. And yet there is something very tasty about freshly rolled oats. I can’t emphasize enough how much more oat flavor you get with freshly rolled oats.

LIZZIE: Mmm….    
ANONYMOUS: So fresh. You know. Here I am. I’ve gotten oats from some farm somewhere, and I’m freshly rolling them, and it’s very oat-sie and it’s very tasty, and all of the vital essence is still there. And then what’s very tasty is to toast it.

LIZZIE: Toast it!    
ANONYMOUS: Yes. So I tend to not do the thing you do, which is smart, which is to make a big batch. I tend to make it fresh. But I don’t have kids. So I have more time to futz with these things than you do. I will do a savory oatmeal sometimes, with fresh chicken stock which I have in the refrigerator, and then usually chopped up veggies, like if there’s leftovers from the night before, or some chopped meat. That’s very good.

LIZZIE: Sounds delicious. A writer whom I edit was saying she likes to do a savory oatmeal with fried egg, nori and chili crisps, and I was like, Dang, that’s brilliant!    
ANONYMOUS: Yeah, or if you have a fermented boiled egg, that goes very well with this. 

LIZZIE: If I ever happen to have a fermented boiled egg, I’ll remember that.    
ANONYMOUS: The possibilities are, of course, endless.

LIZZIE: I’m not quite ready to go into savory oatmeals.    
ANONYMOUS: Hmm.

LIZZIE: I think I’m really just not there yet. What can I say?    
ANONYMOUS: Process. It’s a process. For sweet oatmeal. I think we’re on the same page. The only thing I will ask is if you’ve ever investigated Speculaas? 

LIZZIE: Huh?    
ANONYMOUS: You know those windmill cookies, those Dutch Pepperidge Farm windmill cookies? Do you remember those, they were so…

LIZZIE: Yeah, maybe.    
ANONYMOUS: They were weirdly tasty, despite the fact that they seemed very plain. And that’s because they have this Speculaas spice mixture. It’s a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and a little bit of white pepper, and tiny bits of I don’t remember what else, like cardamom, you can find it online. And it’s incredibly good in any recipe which would normally call for a little bit of nutmeg, any recipe which would normally call for cinnamon.

LIZZIE: Ooh!    
ANONYMOUS: I’ve also had really good results lately with adding a couple of tablespoons of hemp hearts.

LIZZIE: Oh my God, I just bought my first package of hemp hearts this week!    
ANONYMOUS: They’re the glitter of the seed world.

LIZZIE: I’ve got them on all of my salads now. But in oatmeal, really?    
ANONYMOUS: Oh, you’re in for a treat.

LIZZIE: You just toss them in, you just toss them in the oatmeal?    
ANONYMOUS: I do it after. I put them in afterward. Once it’s all cooked, I put it on top.

LIZZIE: But what does it do for oatmeal?    
ANONYMOUS: Well, it’s more protein.

LIZZIE: But in terms of like the taste and the feel…?    
ANONYMOUS: It’s just a little bit more textural.

LIZZIE: Love that.    
ANONYMOUS: So if you’re one of those people who are really obsessed with the creamy, dreamy oatmeal…

LIZZIE: Not me. I like texture. I like all the little bits and bobs. I like not knowing what the next bite is gonna entail, you know - with oatmeal only; in life that’s a much more frightening prospect.    
ANONYMOUS: Well, yes.

LIZZIE: And why is fermenting it important? I’m not ready to do it but I’m ready to understand it a little more.    
ANONYMOUS: The fermenting theory is that, like with all grains, like with the wheat in all bread that most of humanity ate for almost all of the time, there would be a long, slow rise with a yeast, and then you would have a thing you would bake. But that process of bread rising is a form of digestion, really, but outside of the body. And so we ate grains that had been predigested in a sense.

LIZZIE: OK. So along the way in the history of oatmeal, it strayed from ancient practices of sprouting and rolling and fermenting and got bastardized and bastardized and bastardized, and became a highly processed, highly sugared, highly unnatural, fast packet situation.    
ANONYMOUS: Right, like everything else involved in breakfast in America.

LIZZIE: Right, and now that dominates what a lot of people think of as what oatmeal is.    
ANONYMOUS: Yes.

LIZZIE: So when I invite a friend or family member to have some of my oatmeal, it would be understandable if they didn’t understand the depth and value of what I’m offering.    
ANONYMOUS: Yes. Is that what is happening? Do you feel your oatmeal is not well understood?

LIZZIE: Honestly, it is not well understood.    
ANONYMOUS: Well. We’re in a weird world in which we've come to think that any breakfast that takes longer than five minutes to prepare is an offense against nature. More than five minutes has come to seem like an unreasonable amount of prep time.

LIZZIE: I know.    
ANONYMOUS: And it's true that that the morning is a time when it is extremely hard to find time. I mean, you're doing it. You’re doing it a big batch ahead of time, which is smart.

LIZZIE: Well, that's me really tending to myself. The ultimate confrontation of having an auto immune disease is Damn, my body is attacking itself. Because it believes it is in danger all of the time. I need to teach my body that it is safe and that a caring, loving, protective adult is in charge: me. And it’s one of the loveliest things that I could do for myself, you know, to set myself up so well in the morning, with something delicious, and filling, not harmful, and full of energy and nutrients. Sometimes I wake up before everybody, because one of the steroid side effects that show up fairly regularly is waking up completely alert at 4:45 am. That happened today, I was up much, much earlier than everybody else, and I had a really long, luxurious morning with coffee and oatmeal. But when it's not quiet, and I’m in a mad dash to get the kids ready for school, it’s just incredible to have something so nutritious and so lovely waiting for me in the fridge.    
ANONYMOUS: Nice.

LIZZIE: Earlier, when I thought you were describing an oatmeal party that you had hosted, I got excited, because I might actually have a little fundraiser for my kids’ school PTA where I serve oatmeal.    
ANONYMOUS: Are other people going to be into that?

LIZZIE: That's a real question. That's where I've really drifted into a weird zone where the thing that I would be offering would be, like, the biggest expression of my care and love and other people just wouldn't understand it. Whereas if I just served wine and cheese and charcuterie, they'd be like, Oh, great, yum! Even though that stuff is harming their innards.    
ANONYMOUS: [shrugs]

LIZZIE: I’m a big believer that the challenges in my life are here to teach me something. When the autoimmune stuff started I was like What the hell is this here for? And now it’s really obvious what the hell it was here for. The obvious irony of it all, that disease is what got me in the best shape and health of my life.    
ANONYMOUS: Yes.

LIZZIE: I guess it’s OK to become less understandable, especially in the process of caring for your innards. Maybe that’s the trade off: I make less sense to others but I’m healthier. I don’t participate unblinkingly at meal time with friends and family and colleagues but my organs live a less burdened life.    
ANONYMOUS: Yes.

LIZZIE: When I talk to empowered women in their 50s they’re always like, This is the greatest decade of my life. I do not give a fuck what people think. It’s wonderful. Maybe you’re even supposed to become less understandable as you get older. I mean, it’s okay if that happens.    
ANONYMOUS: There’s a perfectly fine world of eccentric, batty, older ladies.

Lizzie: That's where I'm heading. Fine.    
ANONYMOUS: Head that way.

LIZZIE: Yeah.    
ANONYMOUS: You can be the oatmeal lady.

LIZZIE: I can be that lady. Thank you. Thanks for all of this. I think I understand the basic tenants.    
ANONYMOUS: I think that's everything I know about oatmeal. I look forward to you taking these teachings and adapting them to your own purposes, and hopefully carrying them to even higher heights than I ever could, because I think your devotion is higher than mine. So I look forward to seeing what vast benefits in the world of oatmeal you reap.

LIZZIE: Alright, I adore you. I appreciate you. Thank you.