Are you getting your oats? The Three Bears were partial to it; prisoners are subject to it, and as winter kicks in the waking nation is going mad for it.

Porridge. Sales of porridge in the UK are turning us into a nation of Goldilockses – a fact underlined by a consumer survey by Mintel last year which showed that porridge consumption has soared by 81 per cent to £85 million in the last five years.

Now elevated to the status of a superfood, its popularity was underlined during a recent shopping trip in which the shelves of three major supermarkets were bereft of a single packet. Clearly the Three Bears had got there first.

According to Mintel, Britons ate their way through 50,000 tonnes of the oats last year alone, and senior market analyst Julie Sloan says Britain is seeing a porridge revolution, with Britain’s new favourite breakfast being served up not only in the home but also in cafŽs and sandwich shops.

“The success of porridge is almost entirely due to its convenience and its healthy positioning, both of which are key requirements for food in the 21st century,” she says.

Who said fast food couldn’t be healthy? The benefits of getting your oats is well known: it’s quick, convenient and good for you.

Porridge, which is nothing more than oats stewed with either milk or water and served with salt or sugar and milk, has been proved to reduce levels of cholesterol and is pretty much fat-free.

It’s also gives fans who breakfast on porridge a slow energy release which means that they don’t feel hungry until lunchtime. Or at least until someone cracks open the chocolate digestives.

With the controversy over healthy school meals still burning on – it’s been reported that despite the success of Jamie Oliver in weaning kids off chips the take-up of school meals has dropped – many schools across Shropshire have started putting porridge on the menu at breakfast clubs and are reaping the benefits.

Farms such as Pim Hill organic farm near Shrewsbury are rich sources for porridge lovers, selling their oats at nearby Churncote Farm where the simple staple is cooking up a storm with customers.

Helena Collington, from Minsterley, could be described as Shropshire’s very own Goldilocks. She’s been eating gruel every morning for more than 30 years and it keeps her in fine fettle.

“I’m addicted to it,” she says. “It’s so adaptable – you can have it cold in the summer and hot in the winter. It really is the best food.”

And it’s good news for people who watch their figure.

“It makes you thin – it eats the fat,” says Helena. “It gets rid of the the cholesterol and cleans the blood.

“I’ve been having it since I was a little one. When I was a little girl and I was training in ballet it was the one food that I could eat and it would give me the energy I would need.

“People say it’s the new superfood, but we’ve been eating it forever.”

Helena, 37, a living well co-ordinator for Age Concern in Shrewsbury, admits that the beginning of her life-long porridge addiction could well have have been because she loved the story of the Three Bears so much as a child.

Such is Helena’s passion for porridge that she has even been known to get the odd box as a birthday present.

Of course, porridge’s ability to put fire in the belly is nothing new. It has been the breakfast of champions for centuries and in Scotland, where according to the box of one particular oats brand, eating it can turn you into a kilt-wearing shot-putter, there is even a world porridge-making championships.

Over the years people have become very protective of their porridge and it has even entered into people’s superstitions.

Some people say it should only be stirred in a clockwise direction using the right hand so you don’t evoke the the spirit of the devil.

According to custom, porridge should always be spoken of as “they” and should be eaten standing up.

It is standard in some cultures to eat a bowl of porridge the day after a night of communal heavy drinking, such as New Year. And it’s not only good for people with hangovers; porridge is used traditionally in many cultures to nurse the sick back to health.

Porridge is not just popular among human beings. The tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears clearly has its roots in truth, as was illustrated earlier this year when the Shropshire Star reported how a Canadian woman came home to find a bear in her kitchen, munching oats in a bizarre Goldilocks role reversal.

In the book Goldilocks fled when she was caught, having scoffed the Three Bears’ food and broken Baby Bear’s chair; the bear in West Vancouver displayed no such remorse. Even the arrival of three police officers could not convince our porridge-mad bear to give up snacking on its favourite breakfast dish, so the cops retreated until eventually, feeling full, it ambled out of the house.

Porridge – it’s that good. But who’d have thought that a “gruel” more associated with dishing out punishment would have become so popular.

These days Oliver Twist speaks for us all when he says: “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

By Ben Bentley