Talk:Oat/Archive 1

Why is so much of the "Oat" article dedicated to cat people?

"Oats are also used in some brands of dog food and chicken feed. Oat seeds are commonly marketed as cat grass to cat enthusiasts, since cats will readily harvest and eat tender young oat, wheat and some other grass sprouts.[citation needed]" Really? Commonly marketed? To cat enthusiasts? I suspect the cat emphasis is due to the fact that 90+% of Wikipedia editors are "cat enthusiasts"... But does such a common thing as oats need half of the first paragraph need that much attention to cat people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.96.138.183 (talk) 03:36, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

who can say? anyway thanks to the cat enthusiasts for donating their time. i found quite interesting that photo circa 1890 of the people harvesting oats and couldn't help but notice they all looked quite strong, even the women. 108.125.144.161 (talk) 01:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Agricultural researchers typically use the singular in writing and speaking, for whatever that's worth. ---Belgrano 06:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This must be a dialect issue. In British English at least, an oat is a single "grain", and you need more than one of them to get "oats". I came to this page to find out if there was a reason that there were so many sentences that are ungrammatical to me (e.g. "oats is suitable") but I guess you can say that in other dialects? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.42.67 (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

In the US, and Canada we grow an "oat" crop, which produces "oats". "Oats" requires X fertilizer. "There are many different chemicals for use on Oats". (A few examples of usage) ChristianH158 17:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, you've picked up a 2 yr old thread here. Looks like around June 05, somebody took out other species that had been included on this page and at the same time moved this article from "oats" to "oat". Looks like "oats" is used like the singular. I notice you wrote "oats requires" rather that "oats require". And that's consistent with how I would say it. Not sure which one it should actually be under though, or if it really matters.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 03:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Will people please stop changing plurality! We seed Oats. We don't seed Oat. "Oats needs fertilizer", and so forth. ChristianH158 01:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, User:Lesgles changed more than just the plurality, otherwise I'd revert. It still could be reverted if the other changes aren't important, or we can manually go back through and change it back. The additional text about plurality is wrong too. "Wheat" is a group noun, "corn" is a group noun, at least as it is used in North America. A single wheat would be nonsensical and a single corn would sound like a reference to foot sore, not a grain. Isn't a single "oat" as described above, more properly called a "kernel of oats"? In any case, I think we need to "unfix" User:Lesgles's changes as to plurality. It would be nice if editors would make substantive and what they think are editorial changes as separate edits. Especially when the issue is discussed at length on the talk page and could reasonably be said to be controversial. I'm also starting to think this article was incorrectly moved here from "Oats".--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 05:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like I should have glanced at the talk page before I made what I thought would be a simple change. I'm willing to take the time to change it back, if we reach a consensus here. A few things, though:

• The main reason for my edits was that the word oats was used with both singular and plural in the article, seemingly at random. Seeing that, I changed it to what sounded most natural to me. I don't think it's a British/American difference, because I am American. For me, the word is almost always "oats", although I could see instances where it could be singular (when talking about a single grain, or a single species). But just as with the word "clothes", with "oats" I tend to use a plural predicate.
• Both the Columbia Encyclopedia[3] and Britannica[4] use "oats" with a plural verb: "oats were widely grown...", "oats are valuable...", "oats rival corn", "oats are second only to rye", etc. On Google, "oats are" gets twice as many hits as "oats is".
• I also would support a move back to "Oats", though, as I think that whether we regard it as singular or plural, it is the most common form (and following my same argument, it's what Columbia and Britannica use). Lesgles (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No Problem, maybe it's not as obvious as any of us think. Oats appears to be grammatically unusual at the very least. I'm not sure that it matters very much as both usages seem to be fairly common. In fact, see the following Dictionary.com entries. Though we should try to settle on the noun's number, so different people don't keep changing it back and forth; that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be consistent throughout. It appears that the move to "oat" in 05 was without any discussion. Why are all of these questions of number Ag problems? Most of the grains have a group noun (wheat, corn, rye), which would rarely if ever be made plural, then there's "oats", which seems to be a group noun frequently used as a singular but rarely made singular by dropping the "s", "beans" and "peas" both have a useful singular but the plural is much more common for everyday use, and then of course there's cattle, which doesn't even have a singular and is never used in the singular - such that one has to say "one steer", "one cow", or sometimes where I'm from "one beef creature". Ugghhh!--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 20:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that you need to watch what you're defining as "oats". If you are talking about the actual kernels in the bin, then they are plural. When you are talking about the crop, then it is singular. For instance: "Oats is susceptible to stem-rust." "Oats are graded #1 @ 42lbs." ChristianH158 15:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's that simple. Doug is right: most dictionaries seem to accept either singular or plural. But the plural seems to be more common than the singular in reference works, and on the net (see above), and this occurs when talking not only about individual kernels, but also about the grain in general. In the OED I can find 5 examples with a plural verb and 1 with a singular:

• 1857 E. ACTON Eng. Bread-bk. I. vi. 75 In the south of England oats are not employed for bread, but only for feeding horses.
• 1785 W. H. MARSHALL Rural Econ. Midland Counties (1790) II. 167 Many oats..have this year been ‘sheaved’: namely, mown outward, gathered from the swaths, bound, and shucked.
• 1760 R. BROWN Compl. Farmer II. 82 White oats..come up sooner, and top the weeds better than black.
• 1856 J. C. MORTON Cycl. Agric. II. 483/1 Potato oats grown for ten or a dozen of years on late and inferior soil, are totally different in sample and straw from those grown upon fine firm loams.
• 1987 Stock & Land (Melbourne) 18 June 19 Echidna oats can make milling quality and millers are taking them even though they are not the preferred variety.
• 1819 D. B. WARDEN Acct. U.S. II. 538 Water oats, or wild rice (Zizania aquatica) grows in the soft marshes of the eastern parts [of Louisiana].

-Lesgles (talk) 16:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Dictionaries (with some exceptions) are not prescriptive, but merely record usage; an encyclopedia, on the other hand, is supposed to be authoritative. Oats is grammatically singular, or rather invariable as to Number; it simply gets used very often (understandably) as if it were plural, because it looks like one. This is a similar argument to riches.

Nuttyskin (talk) 09:05, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

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)

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)

I suppose it's possible that Johnson was reporting an existing saying, but it was certainly a well known one, without reference to him, when I was a child in the 1960s/70s, at least in the circles I moved in, and not just within my family. I clearly remember my English mother was shocked when my (Austrian) dad returned from a trip to Scotland with some porridge oats, so the attitude was certainly in existence. Whether it was widespread I wouldn't know. Marishka (talk) 15:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

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)

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)

Actually, I corrected the seeding rates. I'm an active agricultural producer, and am in the process of proofreading/updating some of the articles relating to agriculture. Oats is seeded at between 2.75 and 3.25 bushels per acre. We seed at 3.0 Bushles / acre, or 106.2 lbs. ChristianH158 15:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

Merge oat milling into this article

Comments please... nirvana2013 09:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge. The feedstock, the process, and the product are inextricably intertwined into a mucilagineous, porridge-like mass of information. Bigturtle 22:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I hope to do this sometime today, or tomorrow. Regards,<br/>Christian A. Herrnboeck 12:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Bushel Weight

Hi,

Where was the 32 lbs @ 14% moisture found? Oats is stored dry at, or less than, 12%. Anything over that will cause mold and/or spoilage.

Also, at 12%, Number 1 grade oats is 38 lbs, and Number 3 is 36 lbs.

Oats at 32lbs would be "Light Weight", and thus not fit for consumption... I'll update this to read "38lbs @ 12%", shortly.

ChristianH158 15:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The US Standards for Grain say that US No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 oats are 36, 33, 30, and 27 lbs/bu respectively. The Standards discuss Heavy (38 to 40 lbs) and Extra-heavy (40+ lbs) grades, but don't mention a Light grade. The document is silent on moisture, which seems odd to me. Any further thoughts on what the main page should say? --Belgrano (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Right. However, we can't use one country's standards... Unless we specify each country. In Canada (which, is a much larger producer/exporter of the crop):

No. 1 = 40lb+ No. 2 = 38lb+ No. 3 = 36lb+ No. 4 = 34lb+ No. 5 = feed/light weight. ChristianH158 (talk) 14:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Christian's Re-write - Comments

Christian, you asked me at WikiProject Agriculture to take a look and comment. I hadn't taken a close look at the article prior to your re-write, so without going back and looking at the history, I have a limited picture. In any case, Great Job, I think we need to do similar jobs with all of the Ag related articles. Here are some comments, I'll detail things here and avoid marking up the page with calls for cites or section banners saying to copyedit something. I've numbered the paragraphs for discussion purposes:

• 1. Oat#Cultivation - can we get some more cites, either gov't documents or OED or something for these definitions. Also this makes me think we may want to take a look at the way Corn redirects to Maize rather than to Corn (disambiguation) and this latter page may need to be adjusted a little to agree with what we have here.

• 2. Oat#Uses - looks good but needs more cites and could use some expansion, particularly in the area of Oat#Livestock Feed. I'll try to take a look at some references I have.

• 3. Oats#Soluble Fiber - mostly commonly known claims about the health benefits but definitely in need of some cites. Probably all things that can be found on the web, like the FDA final rule, etc.

• 4. Oats#Celiac Disease - Well cited, with a noted exception. Very informative. Not too technical for the average reader. Very good.

I have added to link-out for this section. One goes to a new page on Oat sensitivity which includes also a section on oat allergy. I have added a link to the section on "the oat controversy" within gluten sensitivity page.Pdeitiker (talk) 14:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• 5. Oats#Agronomy - reads well and has good info, but needs cites very badly throughout all subsections.

• 6. Oats#Fertilizer Requirements - Why is the application rate for N given but not for P and K? Also, this would be a good place to give an application rates for manures.

• 7. Oats#Harvesting - I've redlinked two items that need explanation or articles (or at least links to parts of an article) or links to Wiktionary. As for the whole section, this needs cites and I think we could expand the historical paragraph. Are these techniques still used anywhere in the world?

• 8. Oats#Storage - Expand.

• 9. Oats#Processing - Wikify and cite. Otherwise, very good. I'm not sure we've really covered Oats as a livestock feed though with a single sentence under uses and no mention here.

• 10. Oats#Trivia - I think this could be worked in to the article with some effort.

I know that's a lot of commentary. Overall, the article looks very good. I'm intentionally being picky. I'll try to work on some of these myself so don't go telling me {{sofixit}} anyone. But Christian asked. Feel free to markup the above with strike-outs, additional comments, etc. or to put {{done}}'s next to them when their complete.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 04:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Doug! For the agronomy section, most of the information came either from personal experiences (the method it's seeded in, harvested with, etc, etc). However, I got the fertilizer info from the Manitoba Agriculture and Rural Initiatives Field Crop Production Handbook. I'll have to cite that as soon as I have a bit of free time. I did change "dummy head" to "pickup header". I don't know who ever started the "dummy head" thing, but we (farmers) all know it as a "pickup header", and that's what all documentation calls it too...

On point #7, with regards to moisture @ harvest, that's from the same handbook (and Yield Manitoba, 2006 edition). With regards to how the combine does it, that's pretty much common knowledge... No one uses those threshing machines / binders anymore, other than historical re-enactments.

On point 9, could you explain what "wikify" means, please? (I'm still learning!) ChristianH158 04:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Great, it's ok to put in what you know from personal experience as long as we can verify it and get it cites soon. I'm sure no one will challenge it as original research short term but if anyone questioned the information we'd have to cite it or they could just delete it.

Re #7 - Common knowledge among whom? I don't know that nor, I'm willing to bet, are any of the people I know, some of whom are farmers (in New England - cereal crops other than corn are not commonly grown here, and that's mostly grown on any scale only by large dairymen where I am). I haven't seen a combine in about 9 years and I've only sat in one once and that was at a dealership in Winner, South Dakota for fun! I have only a vague idea how they work. Obviously much of the workings of combines belongs at combine but a basic understanding should either be here, with wikilinks to the details on that article.

Re #9 - Wikify means to go through it and add [[ ]] where appropriate. Don't do it everywhere and not every term needs to be linked. I'll try to do some of that. I just wikified the "Scope" section at WikiProject Agriculture, which is what the edit summary "wfy" means.

That source isn't available online is it, I suppose, even in pdf format? Oh well.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 05:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: #7 - Ok, I don't know if I didn't know what I was typing or if someone edited it... I had posted that about using the wording of "dummy header", as no one knows what that is... We call it "pickup headers". I'm pretty sure I didn't write that, but hey, it's been a long day!

Re: Common Knowledge - I believe I can find a "Fact Sheet" in PDF format which will backup most of what I stated, I'll find it in the morrow, if I can.

Re: #9 - Thanks, now I know what you mean! I've been adding them, more and more (see: the improved Storage section).

Nope, that source isn't online, though, I could scan it... ChristianH158 05:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Based on your work I've rated this "B" Class, which is pretty darned good. We need to continue to work on it though.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 16:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

as soon as the soil can be worked

When can the soil not be worked? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

   When it is frozen or too wet.````  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.245.151.156 (talk) 21:23, 20 December 2009 (UTC) 

Weight gain or weight loss

How does oat help weight gain or weight loss? Gantuya eng (talk) 14:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Spring and Winter Oats

In the cultivation and agronomy sections there is reference to planting oats in the spring or fall. I think it would be helpful to discuss how there are two distinct growth habbits of oat, namely spring and winter oat. While winter and spring oat are the same species, they are genetically different with different vernalization and photoperiod requirements to induce flowering. The growth conditions of winter and spring oats are quite different, and oat varieties have been selected for adaptation to one of the production systems but almost never both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BigBubbaIII (talk • contribs) 21:00, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

For the nutrition section

There isn't any info on oats carbohydrates. Komitsuki (talk) 04:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The content of the sentence "Oats contain more soluble fibre than any other grain, resulting in slower digestion and an extended sensation of fullness." is wrong. Dietary fibers in generally increase digestion speed. This is due to the increase in size of insoluble fibers due to absorption of water. The increased size stimulates the intestine leading to faster digestion and thus faster saturation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.177.172.17 (talk) 10:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The nutritional information shows 16.9 g of protein per 100 g. This corresponds to USDA nutrient database and other databases. It is however completely different to the food labels on oats. These range from 10 g to 12 g. I've not been able to find any oats in a shop labelled with 16g of protein. The Health/Protein section states that protein content can vary from 12 to 25% - still not going as low as most food labels (10%) and not referenced. I've not been able to find a reference which resolves this contradiction. Can anyone help with this? [User:Muelaner] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muelaner (talk • contribs) 23:21, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The label on the oat flour package says 7g protein / 40g serving. so this works out to ~ 17g protein / 100g oats. The numbers in the database for oats, is clearly for dry, uncooked, oats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.38.228.129 (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Health benefits of Avena Sativa (Oats)

What I find is missing in the Avena Sativa page is a section on how Avena Sativa can help conditions such as depression, nervous exhaustion, and how it can help calm nerves generally. Apparently, it has been used in this way for centuries. A liquid concentrate of the oat - just as it breaks into flower, is manufactured by alternative / wholistic health companies e.g. (Bioforce (UK) Ltd.), and I am very interested to find out more about this type of health benefits. Could someone write a section on this, please? This could help a lot of people out there!!!--2.102.228.217 (talk) 08:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I second this request to have a section on Avena Sativa health benefits. 94.209.127.141 (talk) 09:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Bushels

I've been going through and providing metric conversions but one thing has been bugging me. The article kept mentioning bushels but never said whether they were ment to be imperial or US bushels (the US one is about 3% smaller than the imperial one). I've just assumed that they were US bushels, which is probably right where the text is talking about oats in the US but what about where we're talking about Canada? JIMp _talk·cont 07:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Usage

"... cats readily harvest..." It's usage such as this that keeps Wikipedia in the second tier of credibility. Orthotox (talk) 07:47, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Consumption Section

Originally posted in the article text by 86.198.106.159. I cut it from the article and I am posting it here. Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 14:48, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: The two cited sources are "identical" and of an unreliable type. e.g. it begins with "a friend of mine had a blood test, etc.". Also the books referenced in those pages are of utterly unreliable kind either. Also the soaking described is due to last a minimum of 7 hours in order a fermentation process to take place, or enzymes to have time enough to have an action: not anything simple as the above lines might suggest. Though there is probably something with this phytic acid, the discourse, here and in the cited pages is of an exaggerate sort. Not encyclopedic grade.

I checked out the relevant sources and I have to agree with IP editor's assessment. The sources were just random blogs, a cursory google search shows equally "reliable" sources contradicting the content therein. These claims should be substantiated with something properly reliable, like a scientific study. 0x0077BE (talk) 15:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Further note, I doubt such studies will be forthcoming. From the abstract of this paper it sounds like scientists recommend this oat soaking only for infants in developing countries who don't have milk, and even then only because the milk itself has much stronger iron absorption-blocking properties than phytic acid. Even if it weren't such a dubious recommendation, Wikipedia isn't a doctor and shouldn't be giving nutritional advice anyway, just describing what things are and what people do with them. 0x0077BE (talk) 15:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

This section doesn't make sense

Historical attitudes towards oats have varied. Oat bread was first manufactured in Britain, where the first oat bread factory was established in 1899. In Scotland, they were, and still are, held in high esteem, as a mainstay of the national diet. Marishka (talk) 14:53, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved; there is an absence of consensus favoring a move, and a legitimate common name argument that readers searching for "oat" will be interested in the edible variety with which people tend to be most familiar. bd2412 T 23:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oat → Avena sativa
• Avena → Oat

– Technically, "oat" refers to the Avena genus, while "common oat" refers to the Avena sativa species. This article should be titled Avena sativa or common oat, but because the Latin name is more widespread (according to Google News and Google Books results), this article should be titled Avena sativa (per WP:COMMONNAME).

Second move: According to Google News and Google Books results, "oat" is a much more common name than "Avena". Per WP:COMMONNAME, the title of the Avena article should be Oat. I have also submitted a move request to change the current oat article (which is more accurately called the "common oat") to its most common name, Avena sativa. Michipedian (talk) 16:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

So your argument, based on the policy subtitled "Use commonly recognizable names", is that the commonly recognizable name for "Oat" is Avena sativa? It is definitely the case that Oat is more recognizable than Avena sativa. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 18:31, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the more relevant guideline is WP:NCFLORA#Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Scientific_versus_vernacular_names. I have no comment as to whether or not the actual move should be made, but I'm deeply suspicious of these google news and books results. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 18:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, "oat" more accurately refers to the Avena genus than it does to the Avena sativa species (in the same way that "wheat" more accurately refers to the Triticum genus than the Triticum aestivum species, the latter of which has the article title "common wheat"). Therefore, "common oat" would be a perfectly fine title for this article, and we could just redirect "oat" to the Avena genus page instead. Michipedian (talk) 14:44, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

• Use Common oat then, if it is moved -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 06:13, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I would be OK with this, but I think Avena sativa is a more recognizable name for the species. Michipedian (talk) 15:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nominated: oat to Avena sativa and Avena to oat, making sure that the lead of the genus article clearly directs people to Avena sativa for the common agricultural species. I strongly object to the use of common oat as a title for anything as the phrase is almost never used to refer to Avena sativa (only ~900 hits on google scholar for "common oat" and most of those are cases in which common is just an adjective describing an oat and not part of its title or name). Rkitko ^(talk) 15:55, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Good point. With this logic, would it then be fair to move common wheat to Triticum aestivum? This is also how Phaseolus vulgaris (the common bean) is handled. Michipedian (talk) 18:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Personally I don't care for these latin scientific names in general, but after more and more consideration, the logic of the move to Avena sativa seems very consistent with WP:NCFLORA, so I'm a Support on this. I also agree that the same analysis should probably apply to Common wheat. Maybe we should advertise this on WT:WikiProject Plants and WT:WikiProject Agriculture to get some more feedback on this? 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 18:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

• Partial oppose, partial support: Move Oat to Common oat, and redirect Avena sativa there. Move Avena to Oat, with a DAB hatnote. Common wheat and common bean should be handled similarly. WP:NCFLORA's preference for scientific names only makes sense when there are conflicting vernacular names and no WP:COMMONNAME can be determined, which is not the case for any of these. It's not like these are called "oats" in British English but "fnizlops" in American English. The wikiproject guideline NCFLORA doesn't trump core policy at WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME, and we already have far too many botanical articles unnecessarily at Latin binomials. We've almost totally eliminated the use of scientific names for animals for which the COMMONNAME can be determined, and it's time we did this with plants. I'm well aware that for many plants this is not practical because of too many claimants to being the common vernacular name, and in those cases only (and those for which no vernacular name exists in English) should they be at the scientific binomial (or trinomial).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:59, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Tell me, then, exactly how common is it for the phrase "common oat" used to refer to the species Avena sativa in reliable sources? Almost never. For the vast majority of plants, the most commonly used name is the scientific name -- simple as that. In the case of oats, if the title oat will be made unavailable by logically moving the genus article there, the next most common name is the scientific name, not a descriptive title. As an aside, I would also support the idea of a split: botanical information on the species split off to Avena sativa; cultivation, agriculture, and use as a food here at oat (this could include information on other oat species that are cultivated in smaller numbers than A. sativa); and the genus article stays put at Avena. This is similar to the Coffea arabica/Coffea canephora -- Coffee -- Coffea split. One article per species, one article for the agricultural product of the species, and one article for the genus. It's more reasonable than trying to fit articles into descriptive title that their subjects are almost never known by. Rkitko ^(talk) 00:06, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I initially opposed this idea, but after further thinking, I now think this could work. We could have one article for the genus (titled Avena), one article for the species (titled Avena sativa), and one article for the food (titled Oats). My only question about this is its implications about other food articles. It seems like the Avena–oats distinction is similar to the cow–beef distinction or the chicken–chicken distinction, where the former term refers to the animal as an animal and the latter to the animal as a food. Would we then have to consider doing this with other articles? Wheat could be made into its own article about wheat as a food, while Triticum and Triticum aestivum could retain their scientific names and only refer to wheat as a plant or as a crop. (This could be summarized as making a distinction between botanical, agronomic, and culinary uses.) Michipedian (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per nom (sic). The nominator says that "technically, 'oat refers to the genus Avena", but articles should be titled based on common English usage and not technicalities. (And, yes, I dispute the unreferenced assertion that "Avena sativa" is more common for the species than "oat"[5]) What a reader of a general audience encyclopedia like Wikipedia is seeking when searching for or linking to "oat" is likely not the stubby Avena article on "33 species" in the "grass family " with "edible seeds, though they are small and hard to harvest in most species". Instead, he or she is probably looking for Avena sativa, "a species of cereal grain...suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats". Even User:Rkitko's proposed Solomonic division à la coffee (i.e., split the food uses and the genus and species articles) is preferable to the proposed move. —  AjaxSmack  20:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
• Suggest Avena → Oats, There are some things that regularly come in plural form as per Category:Oats, Rolled oats and Steel-cut oats Gregkaye ✍♪ 00:04, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Avena → Oat, per AjaxSmack. Oxforddictionaries.com specifically mentions Avena sativa in its definition of oat.[6] Merriam-Webster gives the definition: "any of several grasses (genus Avena); especially : a widely cultivated cereal grass (A. sativa)".[7] Most readers searching for oat are probably thinking of the cereal rather than botanical terms. No opposition against renaming the species article, as long as Oat redirects there (or is made into a dab page). --Paul_012 (talk) 06:21, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Also support splitting into a new article concerning use as food, per Michipedian above. Such is already the case with Rice and Grape. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:27, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: So after discussion, it sounds like consensus has shifted toward the following:

Moving Oat → Avena sativa (per nom)

Keeping Avena as it is

Creating new article for oats as a food, titled Oats

Does this sound good to everyone? Michipedian (talk) 15:09, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I do not oppose this but also am not sure why it is necessary. —  AjaxSmack  05:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

It is helpful because there is currently no centralized place for all information regarding oat as a food. Many people probably search "oat" or "oats" looking for nutritional and culinary information but are instead given botanical and agronomical information. Using Avena sativa for this article title will help clarify this distinction. Michipedian (talk) 14:39, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

• Better suggestion: Instead of splitting this article, what if we instead made Oat a disambiguation page that suggested Avena as the oat genus, Avena sativa as the oat species, and various oat-based food products, like oatmeal? We could still move this article to Avena sativa and then in the lead sections of this article and Avena, we can clarify that they are both sometimes referred to as "oat". Michipedian (talk) 16:01, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per common name. No one types in Avena sativa looking for oats. Rmhermen (talk) 19:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

With that logic, would it make sense to move Avena to Oat (genus) and Oat to Oat (species)? Michipedian (talk) 20:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Celiac disease

The modifications made on this edit by Zefr distort the information.

We can’t say “If free of such contaminants, oat products are a safe, nutritious part of a gluten-free diet.” Cross-contamination is one issue. Genetic composition of oat is another and different issue.

For years we have sought an answer to the issue of inclusion of oats in gluten-free diet. Now we finally have an explanation. We must be clear. If we talk only in terms of "contamination" we are inducing misinterpretations. It should be ensure that the variety of oats is safe.

To include oat in a gluten-free diet must meet two indispensable requirements:

1. Be free from cross-contamination with gluten-containing cereals.
2. Belonging to a non-toxic variety.

Celiac disease is a severe disease that can affect any organ of the body. If remain untreated, or if gluten-free diet are not completely estrict, people may have severe disease symptoms, may develope associated disorders (such as autoimmune diseases) and are exposed to the risk of other long-term complications, which include cancers -lymphoma, small bowel adenocarcinoma, and other malignancies (gastric, oesophageal, bladder, breast, brain)- and greater mortality. Actually, 10–30% of patients with celiac disease are non-responders and have persistent symptoms despite being on a gluten-free diet. Non-responsive celiac disease is largely caused by inadvertent exposure to gluten that accounts for 35–50% of persistent symptoms in patients with celiac disease. Consumption of toxic oats (although it is free of contamination) may play an important role. We need to stay well specified. So I will edit again.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (talk) 12:42, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your expertise and edits, BallenaBlanca. I have modified the text in the Celiac disease section to maintain WP:NPOV and to remove advice you included ("it is essential to thoroughly study...") per WP:NOTADVICE. Also, may I ask that you not load the editing text with extensive quotes from references nearly every time you work on text and insert a source? You apparently do this to emphasize your opinion but such belaboring is not necessary and makes editing for other editors more tedious. The article is written for the general encyclopedia user, so let's keep things as straightforward as possible per WP:NOTJOURNAL, #6-7. Thanks. --Zefr (talk) 15:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

References

Gluten

In discussions of celiac disease in the medical literature, the term "gluten" is used to refer to the proteins in those grains that have been demonstrated to cause harmful health effects in people who have celiac disease. And it is proven that some people react to avenins present in oats. Oats contain gluten, but with different degrees of toxicity depending on the oat cultivar. It is a very simple matter.

Let's look at this edit and its edit summary: (oat should not be grouped with the gluten grains discussed in the 2nd sentence) There is no justification for deleting oats on the list of gluten-containing cereals. Remember that we have to reflect the real content of the sources and Wikipedia does not admit original research. The reference says:

"Gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, barley, and oats) are widely consumed. (...) Similar proteins to the gliadin found in wheat exist as secalin in rye, hordein in barley, and avenins in oats and are collectively referred to as “gluten.” Derivatives of these grains such as triticale and malt and other ancient wheat varieties such as spelt and kamut also contain gluten. The gluten found in all of these grains has been identified as the component capable of triggering the immune-mediated disorder, coeliac disease."

Also, this edit contains more inaccuracies. Avenin toxicity does not depend on its "purity". We must let clear the fact that oats prolamins (avenins) itself may be toxic, and the fact that in addition to these prolamins, oats may contain prolamins from other cereals such as wheat, barley and rye, which is what determines the degree of purity of the oats (not "purity of the avenins").

I adjusted to the sources.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 08:20, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The section on celiac disease impresses generally that people with gluten sensitivity should avoid oat products, whereas there are numerous reviews, such as this April 2017 meta-analysis, PMID 28431885, as well as these, among numerous others: PMID 19595389, PMID 25267242, that reflect the nutritional and GI benefits of consuming uncontaminated oat products outweigh the small risk of toxicity. We need more WP:IMPARTIAL in this section. I would like BallenaBlanca to revise the section for better balance. --Zefr (talk) 16:29, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Zefr, thank you very much for your contributions to balance the page.

I have expanded with the references you suggested. I hope the result is good.

I think it is clear that only a small number of people react to pure oats, that this reaction depends on the cultivar and that there could be safe cultivars to include in all celiacs, but well-designed studies are still needed to reach firm conclusions. Evidence to date is of poor quality and there are no conclusive long-term studies, which are very important in celiac disease, due to the risk of very serious long-term health complications, as malignancies.

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 20:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

This edit has completely changed the meaning of a subject of an extreme importance, the most important issue. Is not the same saying...:

• "determining whether it (the inclusion of pure oats in a gluten-free diet) is safe is very important, because people with poorly controlled coeliac disease may develop multiple health complications, including cancers" (previous text)

...that:

• determining whether oat consumption is safe is critical for people with poorly controlled celiac disease who may develop health complications, including cancers (text after review)

Also, in this same edit has been replaced "Also, oats are frequently cross-contaminated..." by "Oat products also may be cross-contaminated...", but the sources say:

1. PMID 24253052: "Moreover, attention has been focused on the issue of the frequent cross-contamination of oats with gluten-containing grains."
2. PMID 27446824: "clear information on purity of gluten-free samples is vital since many oat products are cross-contaminated"

I have adjusted the text, reordered to follow a logical and added new references.[8]

Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 02:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

weed control (or drying agents) should also mention glyphosate use in USA

The Weed control section only mentions 2,4 D (with no source). Most Oat products in USA contain glyphosate, apparently "used as a drying agent prior to harvest" presumably applied as Roundup to the growing oat crop. - Should we not mention what weed control is used in the different oat producing countries ? - Rod57 (talk) 09:29, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Article talks about production but not imports and exports

Can we say how much from each country is exported ? or where the EU (say) imports its oats from ? eg Does the UK mainly buy Polish oats, or is the trade in generic/mixed source oats and no one (except 'organic' buyers) knows where their oats are grown ? - Rod57 (talk) 09:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

unnamed

Looking at a chart of grain production since 1961, one can see that production of all cereals has multiplied, from between 2x to 5x over the past 60 years, depending on variety. The exception is oats, where production has declined not only relative to the other cereals, but even in absolute amounts: we produce less than half as much, globally, as 60 years ago. This, despite its incorporation into common products in western society. Why is this? (Marginalization is completely understandable, but actual decline is difficult to justify, especially considering certain ubiquitous products made from oats.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 (talk) 01:33, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

IN FUTURE, please post in chronological order!!

Stats

Hi @MB: I think the converts are necessary but just not correct. I assumed these were millions because most production stats are, and I did something else wrong with the syntax. This works?:

Oats production - 2017 MT (ST LT)
Russia	5,451,394 (6,009,133; 5,365,298)
Canada	3,732,900 (4,114,800; 3,673,900)
Australia	2,265,503 (2,497,290; 2,229,723)
Poland	1,464,606 (1,614,452; 1,441,475)
China	1,281,016 (1,412,078; 1,260,784)
Finland	1,013,900 (1,117,600; 997,900)
World	25,949,161 (28,604,054; 25,539,334)
United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, Statistics Division

Invasive Spices (talk) 12 December 2022 (UTC)

• Also pinging Archer1234. — Invasive Spices (talk) 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Invasive Spices, yes these converts seem to work. I don't really think they are necessary/useful. They just add a lot of numbers that don't convey much useful information. What's important, I think to most readers, is the relative output of the producers. Without the conversion, I can still see that Russia produces about 5 mil tons, followed by Canada at under 4 mil, etc. They are just all big numbers and the precision of different tons would be lost on most people and a waste of "ink". What would be much more useful, in my opinion, would be to calculate the country output as a percentage of the world production. MB 21:20, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

• There are a lot of extra numbers yes. I think that's just due to the unnecessary precision. I did this quickly, just trying to add converts to someone else's work. Really we don't need anything more than millions precision or at most one decimal of precision. I think we'd agree about that.

% of world total would be nice yes. I'll try to do that some time. Invasive Spices (talk) 13 December 2022 (UTC)

References