Oatmeal

Store what you eat and eat what you store. According to what I have read oats are one grain that has an exceptionally long shelf/storage life. It’s lightweight and easy to carry. Yes carry, you may find yourself having to carry food and oats are very light and very filling. Many backpackers carry the sugar filled instant oatmeal packets. I really do not care for them but they are easy to make and a few packets will take up very little room in your BOB/ backpack.



There are different types of oats:

• Steel cut oats, also called Scotch or Irish oats, are oats that have been cut. They take the longest to cook and have a chewy consistency.

• Rolled oats or Old Fashioned Oats are oats that have been steamed first and then rolled out flat. They take longer to cook than quick oats, but not as long as steel-cut oats.

• Quick oats, or instant oats, are what most of us are familiar with today. These are pre-cut, dried and then rolled. These cook in a few minutes and have a mushy consistency.

• Oat Groats are whole, minimally processed oats. They require hours of soaking and cooking before they are edible. They are also referred to as “cleaned oats” in reference to the fact they have been hulled and then left alone.

I have thrown aside all the prepper advice and now store what I eat. We eat/use Instant Oats. With instant oats all you have to do is add water and they are ready to eat or use. If faced with a SHTF scenario, I want to be able to have my foods easy to make and also light weight. The other types of oatmeals take preparation and cooking time. Yes, steel cut and whole oats are better nutritionally for you but they are time consuming and not as easily usable when baking.

Oatmeal bread is very easy when using instant oats. Put instant oats in hot water, let them sit for a few minutes and they are ready to be added to your bread dough. Instant oats are also easy to put in your muffin base mix. Oatmeal pancakes- these are so filling and really good, plus very easy to make. Here is an easy oatmeal pancake recipe (though your cookbook probably has one)- Quick Oatmeal Pancakes Recipe.

Quaker Instant Oatmeal :
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 Packet (28 g)
Amount per Serving
Calories 100
Calories from Fat 20
%Daily Value*
Total Fat 2g- 3%
Saturated Fat 0g- 0%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.5g
Cholesterol 0mg- 0%
Sodium 75mg- 3%
Potassium 105mg- 3%
Total Carbohydrate 19g- 6%
Dietary Fiber 3g- 11%
Soluble Fiber 1g
Sugars 0g
Protein 4g
Vitamin A- 25%
Vitamin C- 0%
Calcium- 10%
Iron- 40%
Phosphorus- 10%
Magnesium- 8%

Oatmeal also has other uses beside filling your belly.

Household Tips: 19 Unusual Uses for Oatmeal (WWII Series) | Fluster Buster

 

Very good article, Thanks. I learn something new everyday.

 

We used to eat oats with modest regularity often mixed in other foods. Since going semi-primal at our house oats are mostly off the menu anymore. Cutting carbs and especially cutting grain has been good. Grain does store well and we do have a fair amount stored. If TSHTF, primal may become easier said than done.

 

Dobbin likes oats. Apples too.

 

I eat oatmeal every morning. I prefer the rolled oats that I buy locally in bulk, usually hitting the sales when it's 49 cents a pound. It's stored it in large glass jars.
I cook it only for 20 or 30 seconds, eating it almost raw. Instant oats are too mushy for my taste, and as the name implies, they get that way almost instantly.

 

Don't really care for oatmeal, but like you point out they are filling, easy to make. We do have some oatmeal but down here we prefer grits Cheese grits rule.

 

Great information. A few years ago I picked up a 50lb bag of rolled oats. No one in the family likes the instant oats and we have not tried the other versions. I put most of it into a mylar bag with O2 obsorbers, and kept a small portion for the pantry. When the pantry container is empty I cut open the mylar, fill up the container, then reseal the mylar.

Since you are getting instant oats, make your own "pre-packaged" oats. Take a baggie (or Tupperware container) and add in oats and flavorings (anything that does not need refrigeration). Then when ready to eat, just add hot water.

I didn't think it would be good, but I've started topping my oats (when I have them) with an egg. While the oats are cooking I'll fry an egg, leaving the yolk runny. When the oats are ready, add my butter (real butter not that margarine stuff), a dash of salt & pepper and top with the egg.

As a side note, during the winter months I will feed the chickens warm oats, not that they need it.

 

Rolled oats take like 5-12 minutes to cook through (to taste), and can be eaten raw. Where did this nonsense about rolled oats not being edible raw comes from. Horrible misinformation.

I make a "bannock" with about an even ration of rolled oats, flour, and water, with preferably a little bacon grease in the pan before I chunk it in. When available, some chopped nuts and drizzle of honey over the top goes a long way to classing it up. Cook before a fire or in the oven on 400ish, and you have a loaf that can sit out for most of the day and still be good.

Also, they are hideously easy to farm. You break up a patch of earth with a hoe, fill a bag with oat seed, and toss seed liberally into the broken soil. They grow, and you cut them down (any forward curving blade is an asset here), and set them up in sheaths to dry in the field. LEAVE THEM IN THE SHEATHS FOR STORAGE!!! Unless you have a modern tool for taking off the outer shell of the seed.
Traditionally, the Scots (the main Europeans to eat oats) would remove the outer shell by holding the sheath out over a fire. The chaff and all that will catch, and when the lady doing it is satisfied with the char level of the seed, she beats the heads out the stalks into a bowl with a special stick reserved for that purpose. The oats are then ready to cook, or be ground into a preferred state for cooking with.

Also, if you bring water to bowl, and pour it 50/50 over rolled oats, if you put a top over the bowl, the rolled oats will cook through and absorb most of the water without you having to do anything else to it. About the time it gets cool enough to touch, it should be about cooked. That is my survival tip of the day.

 

I cook mine like that too AxesAreBetter. .. Oatmeal facials. Who needs food as long as you look good!

 

LDS cannery has a website? Is that new? You can go to the cannery in CO but never knew they were on-line.I found the on-line store and they have great prices. Thanks for the heads up.


Never thought to grow oats. But I guess why not.


Direct

5° and 25°C

2 Years


Well Drained

Partial

45 Days

That is not bad- 45 days to harvest. I imagine in some areas you could get in two crops a season.

Also read that oats can be used for brewing beer. Plus can be horse feed.

Thanks for the recipes @kckndrgn and @AxesAreBetter may try them. I do have muesli so I can test how just boiling water added will soften the oats.

 

For winter oats, you plant them late. They may come up a few inches, but die back under a frost. Come spring, they spring to life and you get a good crop out. Just in time to plant Summer oats, which are often a separate type better suited to growing in those conditions. Surprisingly, I had whitetail using my patch as a highway/cover between two patched of woods. I'm not sure that they ate a single mouthful of it. Also, after that two year shelflife on the seed integrity, they will at least partially reseed themselves with no input.

 

I also make a "trail stew" by boiling any of the camp meat that is about to go bad by boiling/charring then boiling it to soften, then adding bacon to it when I can, then boiling down some oats into it as a filler/flavoring agent. Some like it, and it might do you some good.

 

Tried this with steel cut oats this morning and salt and pepper, nothing else. Wonderful. I eat polenta this way but the oats were just as good.

 

I had crawfish cheese grits served at the rehearsal dinner for my third wedding in St. Martinsville, La. They were great Tully.

 

Crawford cheese grits yum

3rd wedding O.O
Brave.

 

Not that big a fan of corn, but we stock grits the same as oatmeal, so I'm feeling ya. Haha.

What brings people down into my neck of the woods? Especially for weddings?

 

I have never had grits. I saw My cousin Vinny so I know there are regular & instant grits.

 

Instant grits are not allowed in our house. @Sassenach says no self respecting southerner will use instant

Not sure if they are in the stores in your AO or not. If you want to try some, I'll send you a box