A weekend with The Oatmeal

Nick had a few Scottish visitors down at the weekend. Time to crack open The Oatmeal and a fresh pot of Hurdlebrook yogurt. They were so impressed they got the bagpipes out.

We're shaking things up a bit

Next week our new website will be live, huzzah! And with this we've had to make a few tough decisions. We're growing - Yay! But there are still only six of us. Which means we've had to simplify things online in order for us to be able to do what we do best and make sure we can deliver on everything we promise.

So what's changing?

Cases Only

If you order online from us once the new website is live, you will notice that it's now not possible to buy a single pack of your favourite cereal. All our food will be sold by the case.  All 6 of us currently pack online orders from our warehouse and we need to make packing more efficient so we can get deliveries out in time. We are making it cheaper , so a case is priced less than if you were to buy the individual packs.. 

There'll be one standard delivery charge

We're offering one set price for delivery - £6. This means you will be able to order as many cases as you can fit into your kitchen cupboard and the delivery charge will remain the same.

UK delivery only

International orders were simply not working. We are going to limit orders to UK delivery only, and do our best to get our food to shops all over Europe. We already supply many European shops and the number is growing. Please check out the international stockists page for further information email hello@rudehealth and we will let you know if we are available where you live. It should work out cheaper than it was to order direct from us.




We know this will take a while to get used to, but aside from training up Spud (Noelle's Jack Russel) to pack orders we are having to make these decisions now, so in the long term we can avoid any tears before breakfast. The good thing is our food is in more shops than ever before so you may not need to order online anymore. On each food page we state which retailer you can find that particular product in.


Yours in Rude Health


Nick, Camilla and the team

Rude Health Ranter Isabelle Legeron on.... What's in your wine glass (& why don't you know)?

Last week Isabelle Legeron MW became our 1st Rude Health Ranter of 2012. She used her rant to encourage us to interrogate what's in our wine glass, by asking for clearer ingredient labelling. Why is she bothered? Well as France's first female Master of Wine, co-founder of the Natural Wine Fair and 'That Crazy French Woman' from the BBC's The Food Programme, Isabelle knows a thing or two about wine. 

She is also the reason why 180 international artisanal wine producers are heading to the cobbled lanes of Brick Lane on the 20th – 21st May to participate in the new and independent Raw Wine Fair. With an emphasis on promoting wine produced using natural farming techniques, the 2 days will be full to the brim with talks, tastings, purchases and palate cleansers in the form of Rude Health Thins.

Keep an eye out on our Facebook page as we’ll be giving away free tickets to the show and check out Isabelle's rant questioning why wine doesn't require ingredient labelling. 

Oats and Porridge. The Real Deal.

Strength, endurance, energy, beauty and perceptiveness. All are qualities attributed to the oat. The last two might be pushing it ever so slightly, the first three are bang on.

What has the oat got that other grains have not? Why are we, in the UK, eating porridge on a scale not seen since the introduction of Corn Flakes and sliced bread?

Take a handful of oats...

Let's start with the smell
Inviting, sweet and friendly, like an old pal.
Then there's the taste
Porridge is warming, comforting and familiar. Reason enough to love it.


Moving on to strength, energy and endurance.
Oats are rich in B vitamins, calcium, iron and magnesium. They provide slow release energy which means you'll feel fuller for longer and you won't be climbing the walls by 11am on a sugar crash. They are high in fibre, so keep you regular. You know what we are saying.

Finally Apparently oats can also boost your sex life.   

soak overnight in water...

Getting the most from your oats
To maximise your chance of getting at least 3 of the 5 qualities, you need to prepare your oats correctly. You should soak the oats in warm water overnight before cooking. 'Why?!' I hear you cry, as you dash between applying mascara/shaving and shoving lunch in your bag. Soaking breaks down the enzymes and in turn the phytic acid. And it's the phytic acid within the oat that reacts with the other nutrients and can block absorption within the gut - not great for digestion. Soaking the oats starts the process of breaking down the phytic acid, leaving less work and more nutrients for your stomach.  Cooking the oats by making them into porridge continues the process.

For those wanting an A* in nutrition, add a spoonful of live yoghurt when you soak the oats.  This energises the fermentation process, which further breaks down the difficult-to-absorb proteins. Read on.

stir gently and...

Milk or water?
So you've soaked the oats overnight and you're feeling smug. What next? That's up to you. If you like it creamy, mix 1 part oats to two parts milk. A purist? Go for 2 parts water and a pinch of flaked sea salt. On the fence? Try a combination of 1 part water to 1 part milk. Each to their own, there's no right or wrong. Then cook. This can take as little as 3 minutes on the hob.

here's one we made earlier...*

Once your porridge is cooked you're half way there. Now if you want to get the full benefit from those steaming oats add a dollop of cream. Yes. Cream. The fat in the cream aids the absorption of minerals, so not only is it darn tasty it's actually doing you some good. Now that's what we call porridge. Don't have cream to hand? Use butter. Stuck for topping ideas?  Raid the fruit bowl, dip into the jam or choose wild or unrefined sugars like maple syrup, honey, bee pollen or rapadura sugar. The possibilities are endless.

That's how we make porridge. What do you do?

*Well we didn't. But friend Lynne Clark did. So thanks Lynne.

Chocolate & Oats - The Love Affair Continues...

You're in rude health when...you kick off the working week with a whisky, chocolate and oat fuelled oatstravaganza. 

We knew it.  Oats and chocolate are a match made in heaven. So how could we resist a chance to prove it? Especially with Valentine’s Day bearing down on us. We couldn't.  Which is why we found ourselves surrounded by chocolate & oat lovers in the Chelsea chocolate boudoir of Marc DeMarquette, renowned chocolatier, ranter and World Porridge Championship Partner-in-crime, on Monday.

We started as we meant to go on, taking oats and chocolate to places they've never been before. Marc handed out steaming oat milk hot chocolates injected (literally) with a dose of Old Pulteney whisky and topped with cream. 

The night then went something like this:

Porridge demo and taste using our Daily Oats. Nick ranting about only using Halen Mon Finer Flake Sea Salt in his porridge. Oatmeal porridge demo and taste. Nick ranting about how he was robbed at the World Porridge Championships. 

Nick making oatmeal and talking, at the same time

Salty caramel demo by Marc.  Same Marc ranting about Nick’s loss at the World Porridge Championships. In case you haven't made salted caramel, it takes a pro to do it while talking about something else and not watching the pan.   

Marc talking and making salted caramel, at the same time

A Demarquette chocolate cup filled with salty caramel porridge for everyone as per our 2011 Golden Spurtle entry. The one that didn't win. Silence whilst everyone dribbles over how good it tastes.

Salted caramel porridge in a melting chocolate cup 

So all in all, a normal Monday evening.

See video here courtesy of implausibleblog.com and pictures here.

Interesting Porridge

I thought that everyone loved porridge again. For goodness sake, Kate Moss eats it and she made wellies the must-have footwear just by wearing them. But this morning someone complained to me (of all people) that porridge was boring. My reply was a perfect demonstration of why I make porridge, not speeches. A few hours and a bowl of porridge later, here is the response I would like to have given.

“Where have you been? Porridge is the new London, if you’re bored with porridge you are bored with life. But don’t panic, just get yourself to Providores, order the porridge, eat it, and then tell me porridge is boring".

This is Providores porridge.

A picture is meant to be worth a thousand words, but in this case it isn’t. You have to eat it yourself.
Part of the fun of this porridge is that it doesn’t taste anything like you expect it to. Especially if you haven’t read the menu properly. It is warming, creamy and tartly fruity, but not oaty, which is no surprise if you did read the menu and noticed that it’s called "Brown rice, apple, maple syrup and miso porridge with tamarillo compote". Bonkers - yes, boring - no. When did you last have tamarillo & miso in the same bow? It's also indescribably delicious, so I won't.

In case you don’t, won't or can't breakfast in Marylebone, Peter Gordon, Chef & owner of Providores has very generously explained how to make it.
"Basically, you almost over-cook organic short-grain brown rice. You make a compote from Granny Smith apples and maple syrup, and another from peeled tamarillos (a fruit from South America) and maple syrup. Once the rice is cooked, you whisk in some shiro miso (white miso) and organic soy milk* and bring it to the boil, then add the apple compote and cook for 5 minutes. Top it with the tamarillo compote and you're done".

I'm off on a tamarillo hunt. If this seems a bit extreme, there are easier ways to enjoy interesting porridge. Hint: Rude Health.


*Whatever you do, don’t show Nick this post, or he’ll go off on a soya rant.

Rude Health - Rants

Rude Health - Rants