Healing with Food Article

Oats

Accompanying recipe: Oat Groats

If you’ve some rolled oats on hand, taste them.  If they’ve a flat and cardboard-like flavor with a slightly bitter after taste, they’re rancid and past prime. Compost them.

Once oats are flaked, rolled, puffed or milled into flour, they’re no longer viable seeds. They won’t grow. The germ in all seeds contains the spark of life. The grain’s skin-like bran protects its germ from damaging light and oxygen.

But, when processed, a grain’s protective bran no longer encircles its fatty acid-rich germ and the oils start to oxidize and, in time, will become rancid. Rancidity is a problem with all whole grain products.

Besides rancidity problems with processed whole grains, there’s a second problem with all processed grains.  You metabolize a grain that’s broken into pieces more quickly than if a whole grain.  So grits, flakes, puffs and all flour products are higher on the glycemic index and therefore contribute to blood-sugar irregularities. Thus, to help deter diabetes, favor whole grains over processed grains.

Because oats contain a higher proportion of fat and protein than most other grains, they impart stamina and warmth, and are considered excellent cold weather fare.  Oats help stabilize blood sugar, reduce cholesterol, regulate the thyroid, and soothe the nervous and digestive systems.

What about Cheerios? Those little Os were once whole, unadulterated oats but then they were ground into flour, mixed with corn starch, sugar, water and preservatives and forced, under extreme pressure, thru a Teflon-coated die to produce their characteristic shape.  In comparison to whole grains, cold breakfast cereals provide little energy and reduced nutrient bioavailability.

The Romans conquered the British but found the wild Scotsmen invincible. When researching my book, The Splendid Grain one old account I read attributed the highlander’s prowess and guerrilla-like mobility to their staple food.  Each highlander carried a pouch of oat meal and dinner was as quick as mixing sea water with the meal to form a cake that, in minutes, baked on a hot stone over an open fire.

Cultivated oats are native to Northern, Central Asia but found a permanent home in the British Isles, Scandinavia and other cold, damp climates. That the Celt’s staple grain, or daily bread, was oats is reflected by the number of their oat dishes including  aran isenach, bannock, broonie, atholl brose, farl, skirilie, sowans, haver, struan micheil, hodgils and kaaka.

In a well supplied market (or on the internet), you’ll find oats available in these basic forms:

• Whole Oats, also called oat groats, are about the size of long-grain rice and have a distinctively sweet oat flavor. An easy way to cook them is in a crock pot: 1 cup of oats, a pinch of salt and 3 cups water simmered overnight.  See recipe below.
• Steel-Cut Oats (also called Scottish, Pin or Irish oats) are oat groats cut into two or three pieces. They’ve a satisfying moist but chewy texture and besides breakfast, may be used in stuffing, soups or even, in place of bulgur, in a taboulie-like salad.
• Rolled Oats are made by pressing whole oats between two rollers. Each rolled oat is one flattened oat. Depending upon the pressure of the rollers, the resulting oat may be thin or, the “old-fashioned” and thick.
• Instant or Quick Oats are groats that have been pre-cooked in water, dried, and then rolled into super-thin pieces and, typically mixed with sugar, salt and other seasonings. The particles are so tiny that they don’t require cooking.
• Oat Flour yields a sweet, cakelike crumb that retains its freshness far longer than wheat flour.  Substitute up to 20 percent oat flour for corn, wheat or rice flour in quick breads, cakes and muffins. To my taste, a waffle containing oat flour is unsurpassable.  For a dairyfree but milk-like base, use oat flour in soups, sauces and roux.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood