Another review? Yes… another review. But I promise you, my lack of regular posts will be made clear tomorrow, so stick with me through one more review! Pretty please?!

This time around I got to try out My Oatmeal, which happens to be a local AZ company! You place your order for a custom bag of oatmeal online, they make it just for you, complete with your personalized label and everything! (I called mine Carrot Cakery Goodness). My shipment even came with a cool recipe card.

The amount of combinations and choices are almost overwhelming! haha It can be dangerous too, sort of like the first few times I went to a self-serve frozen yogurt place. I wanted all my favorites in one little cup, which made for an interesting (some might say gross) final product. Luckily, I had learned my lesson with the yogurt places and knew not to get too crazy with my personalized oatmeal. 🙂

This is just a FEW of the options available to customize your order.

I made my personalized blend using steel cut oats, carrot cake flavor, dark raisins, turkish apricots, quinoa flakes and rice protein. I did not add any sweetener, because I didn’t want it to be overly sweet and I knew I could easily add fresh maple syrup on my own. As soon as my bag arrived, I made a bowl for Mr. Zucchini Runner and I immediately.  

Added my sweetener…

And had a very pretty bowl of oatmeal to dive into it!

You could see the real fruit pieces of apricots and raisins!

Since then, I made another bowl, where I added fresh bananas…

And then another with almond milk vs. water to see if it changed anything about the oats. 

Overall I LOVE the concept of creating your own bag of oatmeal, I will caution however not to get too crazy with the ingredients because it can get pricey quickly. Luckily, they have a nice little calculator on the right side of the page where you can see how each item changes the cost per bag.

I also really appreciated that they use organic ingredients on some items, and those items are clearly labeled on the site. So if you want your custom bag to be ONLY organic, you can do so! I will caution those with preservative sensitivities, that the label on my custom blend said, ‘fruit may contain sulfur dioxide’. I was surprised to see that, and wish it would have been labeled near the fruit choices on the website.

If you want to get really creative with your morning oatmeal, this is the place to go! They have 50 flavor choices ranging from Cinnamon Roll to Strawberry Shortcake. If I ordered a second bag, I would skip the quinoa and rice protein. I think all those powders created a less than desirable texture for me. From all the combos I created above, I’d still eat each full bowl of oatmeal because I enjoyed the flavor, but the texture was a little too powdery for me and that’s my own fault! If I were to make a bowl at home, I would never add quinoa flakes or brown rice protein. 🙂 Maybe I DID get a little overzealous with all the options! 😀

Lastly, the cooking of these oats was super simple, and much quicker than making a bowl of my normal steel cut oats. If you get a bag, and choose steel cut oats, don’t be surprised if the oats look different! My pantry steel cut oats look like this:

But the ones that came in my bag, look like this, a little flatter and smaller:

I was told that’s because the My Oatmeal oats are flash steamed twice to allow for a quicker cooking time once you get them!

One last thing I’d like to talk about before telling you about the awesome giveaway… maltodextrin. I was under the assumption that all maltodextrin was from genetically modified corn, and therefore not something I ever wanted to ingest. When I saw it on my customized label, I was very surprised! However, after writing the owner of My Oatmeal, I learned that their maltodextrin is non-GMO and only used in some of the flavorings. So if you want to be sure to avoid maltodextrin altogether, I would ask which ones have it and which ones don’t, or just skip the added flavor. I’ve since done some research on maltodextrin and learned much more about it, where it can come from, and that yes in fact non-GMO maltodextrin does exist!*

My final verdict on this product? I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys hot oatmeal, and doesn’t like creating their own creations at home (aka cooking/baking). It does require a little stove time, but there are microwave directions as well!

Do you want a chance to win your OWN FREE BAG of My Oatmeal? Head on over to the Run Eat Tweet AZ Facebook page to enter! Or if you’ve heard enough great stuff and just want to try it for yourself, place an order and get 15% off using the discount code: RETAZ15

How do you like your oatmeal? What combo would you make if you ordered from My Oatmeal?

*For those who don’t know what maltodextrin is, but you are curious like I was, here is what I learned. Maltodextrin has many uses: to create a certain texture, crystallization inhibitor, thickening agent, sweetener, etc. The definition of maltodextrin is ‘dextrin containing maltose’. Dextrin is a soluble gummy substance obtained by hydrolysis of starch, and maltose is a sugar produced by the breakdown of starch. So basically it comes from a starch, like potato, corn, rice, etc. Keep in mind it is still derived through a chemical process, and therefore some claim there is no way it could ever be considered organic. Hope you found this helpful!

Best of luck to you!