Do I need to wash and bentch on oatmeal?

Question

I was reading in Artscroll's The Laws of Brachos that if someone eats an amount of mezonos equal to the amount of bread he would have eaten during a meal then he needs to wash and bentch. For some reason it seems to not be the case, but should I be washing/bentching for oatmeal (or even any bowl of morning cereal made from the 5 grains)? If not what's the reason?

Answer 1

No.

There are three categories of grain-based products:

• "Bread." Always hamotzee.
• "Snacky, quasi-breadlike substances." (Pas haba beKisnin.) Mezonos, but if you eat them like a meal, then hamotzee. This was the category about which you read.
• "Definitely not bread." Always mezonos, even if you ate ten pounds of the stuff for dinner. (Though you'd have bigger problems at that point than the laws of brachos.)

Cooked-in-liquid things like noodles and oatmeal are in this last category.

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 48:8 reads:

Dough -- even a basic, breadlike flour-and-water dough -- if it was cooked, the blessing beforehand is mezonos and afterwards al hamichya, even if one ate enough to be satiated. The same goes for mashes made off the five grains [wheat/barley/spelt/oats/rye] and then cooked -- the blessing is borei minei mezonos beforehand and al himchya afterwards, even if one ate enough to be satieted. The same goes for noodles eaten with broth or milk in which they were cooked.