

Oat straw is prized by cattle and horse producers as bedding, due to its soft, relatively dust-free, and absorbent nature. They also can be used for pasture they can be grazed a while, then allowed to head out for grain production, or grazed continuously until other pastures are ready. Winter oats may be grown as an off-season groundcover and ploughed under in the spring as a green fertilizer, or harvested in early summer. Oat forage is commonly used to feed all kinds of ruminants, as pasture, straw, hay or silage. Cattle are also fed oats, either whole or ground into a coarse flour using a roller mill, burr mill, or hammermill. They may be given alone or as part of a blended food pellet. The oat hull may be crushed ("rolled" or "crimped") for the horse to more easily digest the grain, or may be fed whole. Oats are also commonly used as feed for horses when extra carbohydrates and the subsequent boost in energy are required. Oats are also widely used there as a thickener in soups, as barley or rice might be used in other countries. In Scotland, a dish was made by soaking the husks from oats for a week, so the fine, floury part of the meal remained as sediment to be strained off, boiled and eaten. In Scotland, they were, and still are, held in high esteem, as a mainstay of the national diet. Oat bread was first manufactured in Britain, where the first oat bread factory was established in 1899. Historical attitudes towards oats have varied.

Oats are also used for production of milk substitutes (" oat milk"). Oats are also an ingredient in many cold cereals, in particular muesli and granola. Oatmeal is chiefly eaten as porridge, but may also be used in a variety of baked goods, such as oatcakes, oatmeal cookies and oat bread. Oats have numerous uses in foods most commonly, they are rolled or crushed into oatmeal, or ground into fine oat flour. ( December 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. As of May 2021 oat is the seventh most produced cereal in the world. Other substantial producers were Australia, Poland, China, and Finland, each with over 1 million metric tons (1.1 × 10 ^ 6 short tons 0.98 × 10 ^ 6 long tons). Production was led by Russia with 21% of the total and Canada with 14% (table). In 2017, global production of oats was 26 million metric tons (29 million short tons 26 million long tons), a 13% increase over 2016. Oats are an annual plant, and can be planted either in autumn/fall (for late summer harvest) or in the spring (for early autumn/fall harvest). They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals, such as wheat, rye or barley, so they are particularly important in areas with cool, wet summers, such as Northwest Europe and even Iceland. Oats are best grown in temperate regions.

Oats are usually thought to have emerged as a secondary crop, i.e., derived from a weed of the primary cereal domesticates, then spreading westward into cooler, wetter areas favorable for oats, eventually leading to their domestication in regions of the Middle East and Europe. sterilis grew in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. Genetic evidence shows the ancestral forms of A. sterilis is a wild oat that is naturally hexaploid. The wild ancestor of Avena sativa and the closely related minor crop – A. Also, oat products are frequently contaminated by other gluten-containing grains, mainly wheat and barley. They can trigger celiac disease in a small proportion of people. Īvenins are oat gluten proteins, similar to gliadin in wheat. Oats are a nutrient-rich food associated with lower blood cholesterol when consumed regularly. While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed. The oat ( Avena sativa), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals).
