Miles's Overnight Porridge

Idea:

1. At night, put sprouted rolled barley, salted roasted peanuts, veggies/mushrooms/fruits, RO-filtered or distilled water, a dollup of skýr, and some salt into a bowl; stir; cover with a plate. Leave overnight on the counter.
2. In the morning, press the plate against the bowl, and allow any excess water to filter out into the sink.
3. Mix EVOO, seasoning, lecithin, and butter into the porridge. Add salt only to taste.

Why:

• Barley was chosen as a balance between wheat and oats: Barley is intermediate in nutrients, antinutrients, phytase, and glycemic index. Barley has good insoluble fiber (like oats), but also something similar to gluten (like wheat). It's the best all-round grain imho.
• If you are gluten-intolerant, use oats.
• Snack peanuts come already roasted, meaning they already have reduced levels of antinutrients (though definitely not none)
• When you combine a grain and a legume, you get a complete protein: all the amino acids you need to live. (Peanuts are legumes.)
• Grains and legumes (even when roasted) have antinutrients, and peanuts specifically often actually have low levels of a fungal toxin (aflatoxin). These can be reduced more-effectively by soaking than by cooking.
• We're using sprouted grains because sprouting significantly reduces antinutrients and increases nutrients.
• Sprouted grains are also almost necessarily organic, because the grains are killed during the harvest on most non-organic farms. The reason why, is that non-organic grains are typically hosed-down with Round-Up so that they all die at the same time, to increase consistency and avoid sprouting. You don't want to be eating Round-Up (glyphosate), because it's a kind of bad antibiotic that selectively targets the good bacteria in your gut. This is especially relevant for this recipe, because we're going to be fermenting these grains... and we can't do that if Round-Up kills them all in the cradle.
• If you can't find sprouted grains, try malted grains: they're sprouted by definition, which means they couldn't have been hosed-down with glyphosate (which would have killed them, preventing sprouting), even if they're not organic. Note that malts have a distinct flavor, slightly sweet but also roasted.
• Rolled grains are steamed prior to rolling; this also helps reduce antinutrients. They are also, of course, rolled, which makes them much-more water-soluble, which will help in the further reduction of antinutrients during this soaking process. However, steel-cut grains have a lower glycemic index, and if that is of significant concern, you may use steel-cut instead of rolled, no problem.
• The veggies/mushrooms are optional; but they are also typically full of antinutrients and benefit from this overnight soaking and fermentation like the oats/nuts do. Adding veggies can help cover micronutrients not abundant in the oats and nuts.
• An acidic environment of ph 4-5 is best for breaking down these antinutrients (phytic acid, particularly).
• Adding fruits (which are usually full of vitamin C) helps to lower the ph. They also help feed the bacteria we we want to grow. Since this is going to be a savory dish, maybe focus on things like tomatoes and squash (which includes cucumbers).
• Fruits contain vitamin C, which chemically reduce non-heme (plant-based) iron, which improves absorption in the body and helps protect the iron from phytates (which would otherwise chelate it). We need to make sure vitamin C is in the bowl overnight to protect the iron, even though much of the vitamin C will, in the morning, be drained-out with the water.
• We add everything before the water so that nothing leaches until everything is present. A bunch of chemistry starts to happen as soon as water is added.
• It is important to use the purest water you can, because this water is doing the heavy lifting of pulling out the bad stuff from the ingredients. If the water isn't pure, it's not nearly as good of a solvent. (Additionally, straight H2O isn't loaded with poison like tap water.)
• Skýr contains live cultures of bacteria that are good for the human gut, and these should ferment the grains overnight, hopefully further exposing the nutritional contents of the grains for human consumption.
• I chose skýr because I am half-Scandinavian, and my maternal line has consumed skýr for thousands of years; meaning I'm probably pre-made to get along extra well with the bacteria in skýr. That said, pretty much any fermented dairy product will do, be it yoghurt, doogh, or other. You want to use fermented dairy instead of something like yeast because fermented dairy produces acids in the process, and this helps to break down the antinutrients and kill off bad bacteria.
• Skýr also helps to further lower the pH.
• The peanuts contain salt, which in moderation can help prevent bad bacteria while favoring good bacteria (such as that in the skýr).
• The ideal salt content for this fermentation process is 2%-5% by weight, so we may need to add additional salt, beyond what the peanuts provide. To do this, weight the empty bowl, then add all the ingredients (including the water!) except the salt, then subtract the weight of the empty bowl, then multiply by 2%, then add that much salt. We want to add 2% salt because the other ingredients already contain a certin amount of salt, which means we need to leave room for them to increase the salt content past that 2% we added without surpassing the 5% limit. Once you know how much salt to add per the amounts of food you're fermenting, you can re-use that same amount every night so that you don't need to recalculate.
• The plate protects the mixture from contamination and evaporation, and since the plate is made of porcelain it does not contaminate the food like plastic wrap would (The last thing any of us need in our bodies is more microplastics.).
• The mixture is left at room temperature, since room temperature is close to (though unfortunately below) the ideal growing temperatures for the beneficial bacteria the skýr added.
• Straining out the excess water drains out the antinutrients that the water pulled-out overnight.
• Not rinsing helps retain more flavor, nutrients, and bacteria; but it also retains a little more antinutrients (though most should have been pulled into the water by then)
• The EVOO helps add a nice mouthfeel to the oats (though the effect is far greater when the oats are cooked in the oil). EVOO is also a liquid lipid, and you need lipids in order to absorb certain kinds of vitamins and minerals. Plus, EVOO is quite healthy in its own right, too.
• Lecithin can help the EVOO stick to the wet oats, improving the consistency.
• Lecithin metabolizes to mya-inositol, which is beneficial for many reasons.
• Seasoning improves the flavor, and many seasonings contain things like garlic and onion, the former of which is an especially good source of micronutrients. If you make your own seasoning, consider using chili powder -- it's healthy and loaded with antioxidants.
• Butter is tasty and full of micronutrients. It also adds some saturated fat to the meal, which is good in moderation -- you do need to eat some saturated fat.
  
• Optional: Stir in an egg and cook the food. This kills all the beneficial bacteria, but adds more nutrients and flavor; it also helps the EVOO to pull fat-soluble nutrients out of the other ingredients, making it more bioavailable.

Notes:

• Processing your food is good and necessary; eating everything raw is stupid and objectively deleterious. Salads are not the answer!
• ...That isn't to say that all processing is good. Know what you're doing, and why. And try to learn from how people (especially your ancestors) cooked pre-industrially, because they figured out a lot of ingenious shit over the aeons.
• It is good to get both saturated and monounsaturated fats; but polyunsaturated fats are risky, and most trans fats are very bad. Don't eat seed oils! Pro-tip: substitute coconut oil or olive oil for vegetable oil. (Regarding olive oil: use non-EVOO for frying and such; use EVOO for everything else.)
• Never drink tap water.