Bob's Red Mill Extra Thick Rolled Oats, 32 oz

I have decided to change my overall rating. I have left the rest of the review in place below. I went to reorder and saw that Amazon had doubled the price. I won't pay that price. That is just ugly greedy, in my opinion. The price of a bushel of oats soared in late 2021 into summer 2022 to over $7 dollars compared a rough average of $3 in prior years. However, currently oats have settle back down to $3.85 a bushel. One would expect organic oats to cost somewhat more. A bushel contains approximately 34 lbs of oats, including some chaff. That works out to 11 cents a pound at $3.85 per bushel. The listed four-pack of Bob's Red Mill contains 8 lbs. of finished, consumer ready product. That works out to Amazon asking the customer to pay $3.75 for a pound of raw, thick cut organic oats. Obviously, there is some value added and costs incurred at multiple stages of the production process. So the cost of the oats themselves represent just a fraction of final retail price. So just because oats have briefly doubled in price that doesn't mean these other component costs have doubled as well, so the final price shouldn't double. There are often long-term contracts involved, so that is a factor to consider as well. Bottom line, this doubling of price just smells like greed. I eat a bowl of Thick Cut Organic Oats for breakfast with fruit and granola for breakfast and before bed. I have reactive hypoglycemia which means I have to be very mindful of what I eat. I need to eat foods which are complex, which have a low glycemic index, meaning they metabolize slowly, providing steady energy to the body. The thick cut oats digest even more slowly than the old fashioned cut oats. When I eat oatmeal my hands warm up and plump up with blood, which means my blood sugar is in a healthy place. When my hands are cold and I am feeling fidgety I know that my blood sugar is probably low. Well, one day I saw article saying something like "Round Up Found in Cheerios". I figured this was some twisting of facts designed to get views. However, given how much oatmeal I eat, I decided that I should investigate. It turns out that the claim was true, even though the amounts were small. The question is "At what levels does it become harmful?" At what levels would it start to injure the the tiny healthy gut bacteria which are necessary for healthy digestion. That is an open question. I do know that Bayer is trying to settle a class action lawsuit brought by people claiming to have gotten cancer from exposure to Round Up. The settlement is in the neighborhood of $12 billion. If you are public company, you don't pay out that much money unless there is valid scientific basis for such legal claims. When oats of various kinds were tested organic oats had far, far less glyphosate, Round Up's active ingredient. My next question was how was the Round Up getting on the oats. The answer I discovered is appalling. When the oats reach maturity the farmers are spraying the whole field from one end to the other to make all of the plants die and dry up at the same time. In nature, maturities of a plants seeds are staggered over time, increasing the likelihood that at least some of them will be bountiful conditions for producing the next generation. Spraying the crop with Round Up results in uniform dry down and thus higher yields for the farmer which translates to higher profits. It shouldn't be surprising that Round Up's manufacturer has stood as the principle advocate of this procedure. If you eat oats often, you might want to ask yourself, "What else am I eating?" I decided that I didn't want to gamble on my health and feel safer eating organic oats now that I know how they are typically harvested by non-organic farmers.