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Oat

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Plants

                     iOat
   Closeup of oat kernels
   Closeup of oat kernels
           Scientific classification

   Kingdom:  Plantae
   Division: Magnoliophyta
   Class:    Liliopsida
   Order:    Poales
   Family:   Poaceae
   Genus:    Avena
   Species:  A. sativa

                                Binomial name

   Avena sativa
   Carolus Linnaeus (1753)

   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.

   Since oats are unsuitable for making bread, 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 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.

   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

   Top Oats Producers
   in 2005
   (million metric tons)
   Flag of Russia  Russia                    5.1
   Flag of Canada  Canada                    3.3
   Flag of United States  United States      1.7
   Flag of Poland  Poland                    1.3
   Flag of Finland  Finland                  1.2
   Flag of Australia  Australia              1.1
   Flag of Germany  Germany                  1.0
   Flag of Belarus  Belarus                  0.8
   Flag of People's Republic of China  China 0.8
   Flag of Ukraine  Ukraine                  0.8
   World Total                               24.6
   Source:
   UN Food & Agriculture Organisation
   (FAO)

   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. In England they were considered
   an inferior grain, because they cannot be made into bread but only
   "inferior" foods such as porridge or oatcakes, and because they are
   associated with poorer areas where wheat cannot be grown, with less
   sun, more rain and less fertile soil, and where as a consequence the
   people were literally poorer. 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.

Health

   Oats are generally considered "healthy", or a health food, being touted
   commercially as nutritious.
   Oat grains in their husks
   Enlarge
   Oat grains in their husks

Soluble Fibre

   Oat bran is the outer casing of the oat. Its consumption is believed to
   lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol, and possibly to reduce the risk of heart
   disease.

   After reports found that oats can help lower cholesterol, an "oat bran
   craze" swept the U.S. in the late 1980s, peaking in 1989, when potato
   chips with added oat bran were marketed. The food fad was short-lived
   and faded by the early 1990s. The popularity of oatmeal and other oat
   products again increased after the January 1998 decision by the Food
   and Drug Administration (FDA) when it issued its final rule allowing a
   health claim to be made on the labels of foods containing "soluble
   fiber" from whole oats (oat bran, oat flour and rolled oats), noting
   that 3 grams of soluble fiber daily from these foods, in conjunction
   with a diet low in "saturated fat" and "cholesterol", and "low fat" may
   reduce the risk of heart disease. In order to qualify for the health
   claim, the whole oat-containing food must provide at least 0.75 grams
   of soluble fiber per serving. The soluble fibre in whole oats comprise
   a class of polysaccharides known as Beta-D-glucan.

   Beta-D-glucans, usually referred to as beta-glucans, comprise a class
   of non-digestible polysaccharides widely found in nature in sources
   such as grains, barley, yeast, bacteria, algae and mushrooms. In oats,
   barley and other cereal grains, they are located primarily in the
   endosperm cell wall.

   Oat beta-glucan is a soluble fibre. It is a viscous polysaccharide made
   up of units of the sugar D-glucose. Oat beta-glucan is comprised of
   mixed-linkage polysaccharides. This means that the bonds between the
   D-glucose or D-glucopyranosyl units are either beta-1, 3 linkages or
   beta-1, 4 linkages. This type of beta-glucan is also referred to as a
   mixed-linkage (1→3), (1→4)-beta-D-glucan. The (1→3)-linkages break up
   the uniform structure of the beta-D-glucan molecule and make it soluble
   and flexible. In comparison, the nondigestible polysaccharide cellulose
   is also a beta-glucan but is non-soluble. The reason that it is
   non-soluble is that cellulose consists only of (1→4)-beta-D-linkages.
   The percentages of beta-glucan in the various whole oat products are:
   oat bran, greater than 5.5% and up to 23.0%; rolled oats, about 4%;
   whole oat flour about 4%.

   Oats after corn (maize) has the highest lipid content of any cereal,
   e.g., >10 percent for oats and as high as 17 percent for some maize
   cultivars compared to about 2-3 percent for wheat and most other
   cereals. The polar lipid content of oats (about 8-17% glycolipid and
   10-20% phospholipid or a total of about 33% ) is greater than that of
   other cereals since much of the lipid fraction is contained within the
   endosperm.

Protein

                  Oats
   Nutritional value per 100 g
        Energy 390 kcal   1630 kJ

   Carbohydrates                  66 g
   - Dietary fibre  11 g
   Fat                            7 g
   Protein                        17 g
   Pantothenic acid (B5)  1.3 mg  26%
   Folate (Vit. B9)  56 μg        14%
   Iron  5 mg                     40%
   Magnesium  177 mg              48%
   β-glucan (soluble fibre)       4 g
     Percentages are relative to US
   recommendations for adults.
   Source: USDA Nutrient database

   Oat is the only cereal containing a globulin or legume-like protein,
   avenalins, as the major (80%) storage protein. Globulins are
   characterized by water solubility; because of this property, oats may
   be turned into milk but not into bread. The more typical cereal
   proteins, such as gluten are prolamines. The minor protein of oat is a
   prolamine: avenin.

   Oat protein is nearly equivalent in quality to soy protein which has
   been shown by the World Health Organization to be the equal to meat,
   milk, and egg protein. The protein content of the hull-less oat kernel
   ( groat) ranges from 12–24%, the highest among cereals. {Radomir
   Lasztity. 1999. The chemistry of oats. In: Cereal Chemistry. Akademiai
   Kiado(English)}

Celiac Disease

   Coeliac disease, or celiac disease, from Greek "koiliakos", meaning
   "suffering in the bowels", is a disease often associated with ingestion
   of wheat, or more specifically a group of proteins labelled prolamines,
   or more commonly, gluten.

   Oats lack many of the prolamines found in wheat; however, oats do
   contain avenin. Avenin is a prolamine which is toxic to the intestinal
   submucosa and can trigger a reaction in some celiacs.

   Additionally, oats are frequently processed near wheat, barley and
   other grains such that they become contaminated with other glutens.
   Because of this, the FAO's Codex Alimentarius Commission officially
   lists them as a crop containing gluten. Oats from Ireland and Scotland,
   where less wheat is grown, are less likely to be contaminated in this
   way.

   Oats are part of a gluten free diet in, for example, Finland and
   Sweden. In both of these countries there are "pure oat" products on the
   market.

Agronomy

   Oats are sown in the spring, as soon as the soil can be worked. An
   early start is crucial to good yields as oats will go dormant during
   the summer heat. Oats are cold-tolerant and will be unaffected by late
   frosts or snow. Typically about 100 kg/hectare (about 2 bushels per
   acre) are sown, either broadcast or drilled in 150 mm (6 inch) rows.
   Lower rates are used when underseeding with a legume. Somewhat higher
   rates can be used on the best soils. Excessive sowing rates will lead
   to problems with lodging and may reduce yields.
   Oats, barley, and some products made from them.
   Enlarge
   Oats, barley, and some products made from them.

   Winter oats may be grown as an off-season groundcover and plowed under
   in the spring as a green fertilizer.

   Oats remove substantial amounts of nitrogen from the soil. If the straw
   is removed from the soil rather than being ploughed back, there will
   also be removal of large quantities of potash. Usually 50-100
   kg/hectare (50-100 pounds per acre) of nitrogen in the form of urea or
   ammonium sulphate is sufficient. A sufficient amount of nitrogen is
   particularly important for plant height and hence straw quality and
   yield. When the prior-year crop was a legume, or where ample manure is
   applied, nitrogen rates can be reduced somewhat.

   The vigorous growth habit of oats will tend to choke out most weeds. A
   few tall broadleaf weeds, such as ragweed, goosegrass and buttonweed
   (velvetleaf), can occasionally be a problem as they complicate harvest.
   These can be controlled with a modest application of a broadleaf
   herbicide such as 2,4-D while the weeds are still small.

   Modern harvest technique is a matter of available equipment, local
   tradition, and priorities. Best yields are attained by swathing,
   cutting the plants at about 10 cm (4 inches) above ground and putting
   them into windrows with the grain all oriented the same way, just
   before the grain is completely ripe. The windrows are left to dry in
   the sun for several days before being combined using a dummy head. Then
   the straw is baled.

   Oats can also be left standing until completely ripe and then combined
   with a grain head. This will lead to greater field losses as the grain
   falls from the heads and to harvesting losses as the grain is threshed
   out by the reel. Without a draper head, there will also be somewhat
   more damage to the straw since it will not be properly oriented as it
   enters the throat of the combine. Overall yield loss is 10-15% compared
   to proper swathing.

   Late 19th and early 20th century harvesting was performed using a
   binder. Oats were gathered into shocks and then collected and run
   through a stationary threshing machine.

   Earlier harvest involved cutting with a scythe or sickle, and threshing
   under the feet of cattle.

   A good yield is typically about 3000 kg/hectare (100 bushels/acre) of
   grain and two tonnes of straw.

Trivia

     * The eruption of Mount Tambora caused a change in world climate
       resulting in a volcanic winter and the " year without a summer" in
       1816, during which time the price of oats rose dramatically, for
       example in the USA from 12 to 92 cents per bushel. This led to the
       starvation of many horses, which in turn led to transportation
       problems, which Baron Karl von Drais attempted to solve by
       inventing the dandy horse, the direct precursor to the bicycle.

     * Bodybuilders may be known to eat copious amounts of oats to get
       adequate carbohydrate.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oat"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
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