Talk:Oat
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[edit] Standardization
Any possibility of standardizing the different articles on the main types of grain (wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, maize ...) to make them more parallel? Is any brave (and qualified) soul prepared to take on the work? Grendlegrutch 10:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gluten
The previous update, as of 2006-06-11, 01:00am stated that oats contain no gluten and are safe for sufferers of celiac.
This unsubstantiated claim is irresponsible, unsafe, and inaccurate. Oats contain Avenin which is a gluten. Not all, but many celiacs suffered partial or complete reactivity to this protein. This protein is toxic to the intestinal submucosa, and some T-Cells will overreact, causing celiac sprue.
Link to description of proteins, toxicity, in grains[[1]] Link to reactivity study of avenin in celiacs[[2]] --Xaminmo 06:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Singular vs Plural
Is there such thing as a singular "oat"? I would call a single grain an oat kernel. Otherwise it is always oats, except in constructing compound words, as oatmeal, oat flour. Rmhermen 17:36 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Aye! Oat! Here Wikipedian insistence on topic headings in the singular case is carried to comic extremes. --Wetman 21:46, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- I think it is unfortunate that this was moved to the plural, because now the editor of another page must visit this one to find out that an exception has been made. -- Pekinensis 20:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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- Yes, there is such thing as a singular oat; an oat can mean a single plant of Avena sativa, as in e.g. a single volunteer plant growing in a field of another crop "look, there's an oat in that field" - MPF 11:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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- Agricultural researchers typically use the singular in writing and speaking, for whatever that's worth. ---Belgrano 06:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Aflatoxins?
Isn't it possible that eating raw oats in higher amounts - say, 100/200 g per day - could cause dietary problems? E.g. because of relatively small amount of aflatoxins (in the regions of USA, EU)? Am asking because of cases when eating raw oats can lead to diarrhea, and omitting them can lead back to normal stool.--Mar cel 07:53, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
- Seems very unlikely. Anyone who eats muesli would be eating that much or more with no problems. Eating oats isn't going to get you caught between two stools. - MPF 14:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This problem you have surely also with some other raw fruits, vegetables and so on. There is no "prescription" how you can defend yourself against this problem. A rest risk is "always" there. Only by cooking you avoid more or less the aflatoxines. --Fackel 01:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
In UK prisons during the 19th century, prisoners who were fed exclusively on oatmeal gruel for years at a time survived with no ill effects, so I wouldn't worry. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] English attitude to oats
The article says "A traditional saying in England is that "oats are only fit to be fed to horses and Scotsmen". I would suggest that this is probably not traditional, but a misquotation of the relevant (and quite well known) entry in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language of 1755:
oats: 'a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.'
Johnson's Dictionary is renowned for his witty definitions. The OED will presumably be able to give details of earlier comments of this type, if they exist. - Jwelby 08:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Oat milk
The external link to the oat milk product is interesting. But I especially loved the part where it says "It is free of milk protein, lactose and soya". I couldn't help feeling that they should have added "Warning: may contain oats!" -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Crop Yield
I was surprised to read in the article that a typical crop yield is only two bushels per acre, because market prices for oats typically run from $1 to $3 per bushel (ref: long term records at the Chicago Board of Trade, www.cbot.com). Right now (Sept. 9, 2006) it's roughly $2.00 a bushel. Thus, the typical crop yield reported in the article would earn a farmer only $4/acre. This does not seem economical to me, given the time and effort required to harvest the oats. Is it really true that a 250 acre plot of oats would fetch a mere $1000 at market? If so, how do the oats farmers earn a living off that, much less make a profit? Does the crop yield claim have a reference that can be checked?
- Please read more closely: 2 bushels is the amount seeded. "A good yield is typically about 3000 kg/hectare (100 bushels/acre) of grain and two tonnes of straw." as the article says. Rmhermen 21:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Manufactured oats vs. oat grain
Care should be given to the naming of different kinds of oat products. Rice, wheat, barley refer to uncooked grains. Therefore, people assume that "oats" is an uncooked grain. This is not true. To the best of my knowledge, all forms of oats are pre-cooked. To remove the hulls, whole oats are reportedly steamed to make hull removal easier. Therefore even oat groats are partially cooked. On the other extreme, rolled oats are oats which have been steamed until soft, smashed with a roller, dried, and stored at room temperature in open air for months before shipping to market. Rolled oats are more closely related to cardboard than to the whole grain called oats. Robert Elliott 04:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Oat production data
Could you please clarify where these figures came from? The link to FAOSTAT only provides data until 2004. The values here are not quite the same, so presumably are correct. I would be interested in the 2005 data.
FredG.
- They did come from the FAO - however they are reqorking their website so the links don't always work anymore. Rmhermen 18:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
