Grains : Oat - Introduction

The Oat (Avena sativa) is a species of cereal grain, and the seeds of this plant. They are used for food for people and as fodder for animals, especially poultry and horses. Oat straw is used as animal bedding and sometimes as animal feed.
Oat grains in their husks
Since oats are unsuitable for making bread on their own, they are often served as a porridge made from crushed or rolled oats, oatmeal, and are also baked into cookies (oatcakes) which can have added wheat flour. As oat flour or oatmeal, they are also used in a variety of other baked goods (e.g. bread made from a mixture of oatmeal and wheat flour) and cold cereals, and as an ingredient in muesli and granola. Oats may also be consumed raw, and cookies with raw oats are becoming popular. Oats are also occasionally used in Britain for brewing beer. Oatmeal stout is one variety brewed using a percentage of oats for the wort. The more rarely used Oat Malt is produced by the Thomas Fawcett & Sons Maltings and was used in the Maclay Oat Malt Stout before Maclay ceased independent brewing operations.

Oats also have non-food uses. Oat straw is also used in corn dolly making, and it is the favourite filling for home made lace pillows. Oat extract can be used to soothe the skin conditions, e.g. in baths, skin products, etc.

A now obsolete Middle English name for the plant was haver (still used in most other Germanic languages), surviving in the name of the livestock feeding bag haversack. In contrast with the names of the other grains, "oat" is usually used in the plural.

Distribution
Closeup of oat kernels
Oats are native to Eurasia and appear to have been domesticated relatively late. They are now grown throughout the temperate zones. They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals like wheat, rye or barley, so are particularly important in areas with cool, wet summers such as northwest Europe, even being grown successfully in Iceland. Oats are an annual plant, and can be planted either in the fall (for late summer harvest) or in the spring (for early autumn harvest).

Historical attitudes towards oats vary. Oat bread was first manufactured in England. In England, in 1899, the first oat bread factory was established. In Scotland they were, and still are, held in high esteem, as a mainstay of the national diet. A traditional saying in England is that "oats are only fit to be fed to horses and Scotsmen", to which the Scottish riposte is "and England has the finest horses, and Scotland the finest men". Samuel Johnson notoriously defined oats in his Dictionary as "a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people". While frequently seen as derogatory, this is no less than the literal truth. Oats are so central to traditional Scottish cuisine that the Scottish English word "corn" refers to oats (as opposed to it meaning wheat in England and maize in North America and Australia). Oats grown in Scotland command a premium price throughout the United Kingdom as a result of these traditions.

The discovery of the healthy cholesterol-lowering properties has led to wider appreciation of oats as human food.

source : hydroponicsearch