Talk to me about OATS, milky, rolled, steel cut, oat milk, oatstraw, tincture, mulch!

JodieDownUnder

I grew up around oats. We fed it to our horses & cattle in grain form. We grew it for our cattle & horses in green paddock form & now it has become a powerhouse in health, medicinal form for humans.

So I note that here on the forum some people have done the “milky oat challenge “ with wonderful results. I eat oats regularly for breakfast, either oatmeal or Bircher muesli style (rolled oats) I’ve started using oat milk instead of dairy but for the life of me, it is almost impossible to purchase milky oats in Australia for human consumption. I’d love to buy it from TGN but restrictions on plant material re post from US - Aus is a no no. I can buy organic oat straw here for tea but no milky heads.

So this year I grew some. I got a couple of handfuls of feed oats from a horsey friend & top dressed a couple of garden beds with it. It germinated & grew extremely well. When the milky top appeared I harvested by hand & made fresh tea but it didn’t last all that long, certainly not enough for a milky oat challenge. I got a 2nd smaller harvest, then I pulled out my “green cover crop” & used it for mulch on the beds.

My question is, if I consume the amount of oats that I do, is it the same intake of “oat goodies” as if I drank milky oat tea? Are the same properties in milky oats, carried through to more mature oats? Due to the small amount I grew, seems I should have tinctured the oats, has anyone done this before? Love to hear your thoughts.

Torey

@JodieDownUnder Each part of the plant has its own benefits. For me, I'm not a big tea drinker so a tincture would be more useful for me if I were after the nervous system benefits. For those who want all the good minerals, a nourishing herbal infusion would probably be best.

Here is a link to the Herbal Academy's page on Oat Benefits with their opinion on the effects of different preparations.

https://theherbalacademy.com/oats-benefits-getting-to-know-avena-sativa/

And a link to Rosalee de la Foret's thoughts on the different preparations. I think she does a better job of differentiating the properties of the preparations.

https://www.herbalremediesadvice.org/health-benefits-of-oats.html

You've already gone through this stage but for those who are contemplating growing/harvesting their own, TGN has a blog article on the subject.

https://thegrownetwork.com/grow-milky-oat-tops/

If you just had a small amount, then I think tincturing would be best. But drying the milky oats is great if you like hot beverages.