Oats were the last major cereal plant to be domesticated. Wild oats are ancient, and traces of them were found on a grinding tool at an archeological site in Italy; the pestle stone was dated 32,000 years old. However, interest in oats as a food didn’t translate to cultivation until 3,000 years ago in Europe. Before then, oats grew as a weed of wheat and barley. Greeks and Romans refer to oats in their writings, but only as an animal food.
In the Upper Midwest, oats were common in the time of horse-driven agriculture and grown for horse feed and bedding, but as farmers became reliant on engine powered equipment oats became much less common on the landscape.
Oats are often used as a “nurse” crop to help protect newly planted fields of alfalfa or clover. Without a food-grade market, oats are a tough financial endeavor, and the straw is sometimes more valuable than the grain itself. But oats are a familiar food to consumers, offering significant potential for market development.
Oats are another crop that have a pesky hull that remains on the grain after harvesting and requires the specialized process of dehulling. There are new varieties of hulless or “naked” oats now available to farmers that lose their hull when combined at harvest; additional breeding work is continuing to develop better varieties of these crops.
Oat kernels, or groats, are thin and pointy. These groats are most commonly flaked, and very often heat-treated to stabilize the fats in the grain to prevent spoilage.
Function: Oats are eaten on their own, often for breakfast or used in baking, and more recently, to make oat milk. Prior to the combustion engine, oats were grown as fuel for horses.
Flavor profile: A very fatty grain, the taste of freshly rolled oats is quite different from supermarket oats. Regional oats are slightly sweet, have a toasty aroma, and mild nutty flavor.
Nutritional info: The beta-glucan soluble fiber from oats is valuable enough to earn a nutritional badge from the Food and Drug Administration, for a reduced risk of coronary heart disease. Oats are higher in fat than other grains, making them highly nutritious and also highly perishable.