Hi Rosie!

I have read old texts from pre mono-culture Scottish farmers and not found any evidence that they used hull-less oats. And kilns used for oats have been found at Scottish archaeological sites going back centuries.

I believe the Scots were able to have oats so often because they lived outside, ate them with fats and high levels of vitamins/minerals. Neither do I discount the fact that their soils and microbiome could have been very different. I wrote about it in my article here: https://ancestralkitchen.com/2023/04/12/why-didnt-the-scottish-routinely-ferment-their-oats/

Either will work, Rosie.

Hi Rosie. It’s good to see you experimenting. It’s my understanding that farmers use ‘seed’ naked oats – ones that haven’t been processed at all. A farmer in Italy sent me some and I was able to grow a nice crop from them.

Re: the Scots. I posted again in the thread, regarding “hulless” oats (naked oats). Apparently Scots favoured the hulless variety…and the hulled type more common now is because of modern monoculture large-scale farming.

Which makes me think that the hulless type is probably lower in phytic acid, it’s not just the eating of berries and so on. And with the hulless type, I imagine, but I can’t be sure, that they could store the harvest oats in stooks, and just hand thresh them as needed–therefore, they might not need to be dried (kilned, baked, whatever) as is the case today where they are harvested and processed, hulls removed, and then preservation is needed.

Looking at some seed companies who sell grain/cereal seeds, they often offer commentary on “ease of threshing by hand” to remove the hulless oats from the sheath. Some are easier than others, but in general, they mostly seem to be fairly easy to thresh.

Well, well, isn’t that something? Because I had been wondering how the Scots could be so hardy and eat so much oats. They also ate a lot of organ meats, nothing was wasted (I’ve made haggis for a Robbie Burns night I once organized, it had various organ meats, but at the time, I didn’t have hulless oats, and now I’d use those!).

Hi Allison, I want to update you on the sprouting efforts with the naked oats (hulless variety) I bought a year ago, I was wondering if they would still sprout. They are from a raw food company and sold as hulless oats for sprouting.

They are sprouting! I’d say 50% germination. It’s hard to gauge, they have broken bits from the threshing process and those damaged ones do not sprout, your are right on that of course.

I’ve also tracked down a farmer who grows them, he is very enthusiastic in his listing on a wholesale grain site. I can see why anyone would be, especially if you have chickens to feed. The chooks avoid the hulled oats. It’s the last grain they will touch if you give them a mix. Do they know something people don’t?(!) But they like flaked oats. The hull on regular oats is so tough, it’s a waste of money to buy it, and they can’t break it down.

I will LYK if I can get viable seed and tips from this grain farmer, and try to grow some–for myself and the animals. Or buy in bulk from the farmer himself. It’s worth a try, and in whatever country a person is in, there’s someone probably growing hulless oats–there are many varieties, some quite old heirloom.

Here is what the A.I. summary said when I searched:
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“Hulless oats, scientifically known as Avena nuda, are a species of grass with edible seeds that originated in China, where they have been cultivated for centuries for both food and feed.

Unlike common hulled oats (Avena sativa), hulless oats have a hull that separates easily from the grain during threshing, a trait resulting from a natural mutation affecting the gene responsible for hull adhesion.

Genomic analysis indicates that hulled and naked oats diverged approximately 51,000 years ago and were likely domesticated independently in Europe and China.

The cultivation of naked oats spread from China to Europe, with evidence of their presence in Britain as early as the mid-16th century.

In Cornwall, a specific variety known as pillas, pilez, or pil-corn—possibly the same species—was grown from the 17th century through the 19th century, with the last known harvest occurring in 1867.

This variety was valued not only for its grain, which was used to make a porridge called gurts, but also for its soft, tough straw, which was used in hat plaiting.

In Colonial America, hulless oats—sometimes referred to as peelcorn or silpee—were brought by Scottish immigrants in the early 1600s and became a staple food, especially where wheat struggled to grow.

Settlers prepared them into porridge or fermented dishes like sowens, a traditional Scottish oat ferment.

In China, hulless oats have historically been the dominant oat type, though recent decades have seen a rise in hulled oat production due to the adoption of large-scale monoculture farming practices.

The ease of processing hulless oats—requiring no steaming or roasting to remove hulls—has made them attractive for modern food production, as they retain more nutrients and can be milled directly into flakes.

Despite their long history and nutritional advantages, their cultivation declined in some regions due to challenges like increased pest pressure and the dominance of industrial farming methods favoring hulled varieties.”

Hi again! Do you mean the black (unhulled) buckwheat? Or the intact but hulled pale buckwheat groats?

Okay! I am currently trying to sprout some now. I do notice that the little naked oats are much more fragile and a fair percentage are broken. How do they ever plant them and get them to grow if the germination rate is very low, I have to wonder.

My next quest will be to contact a grower, a farmer who sells them, and see if I can purchase the naked oats as seed. He is apparently very pleased with them and thinks more farmers need to grow them.

What I’ve started doing now after your comments is to put the ferment in the blender, including oats, and give them a whirl, then heat them. But as you pointed out, and I noted, many naked oats are already partly damaged, they are so delicate.

After the oats w/rye flour soak mix is heated a while, I strain and rinse them and save the water for more soaks, or even for soaking the chickens feed. I believe it will have enzymes and active “things” to help break down their feed, more than just water soak.

I recall reading about millet soaking, or barley(?) or brown rice(?) LOL, anyway, the soak water reduces the soaking time needed to break down the phytic acid. I wish I’d saved that link though!

best,
Rosie

I stopped getting cavities (we call them fillings in the UK) wheneI stopped eating sugar too.

I’m glad you liked this oatmeal. I wonder, if you’re adding rye and fermenting the unground grains, whether the phytase is able to penetrate the outside of the grains and get to the phytic acid? I know naked oats have a much softer outside, but usually I would grind the grains beforehand to expose the inside of them.

Thank you for your words on my site and work 🙂

Thanks Rosie. Yes, we are talking about the same oat. It’s naturally hull-less. I refer to it as ‘naked’. I bought some of these from a farmer it Italy and about 5% sprouted. She told me the threshing/light processing can damage them. I then purchased some ‘seed’ naked oats that she uses for replanting. They were more fibrous but sprouted. Since moving to England, I have purchased ‘naked’ oats from Hodemedods. I love them. I have confirmed they are not heat treated. They don’t reliably sprout. The producer is not 100% sure why.

Good luck with your planting. I would love to hear the oucome.

I have not seen any studies on naked oats v. oats with hulls and phytic acid. If they could be sprouted, I am sure the phytic acid content would be greatly reduced. That’s where I started in my quest for them. I’ve not found a reliable source where this is possible yet though.

Hi again, are we talking about the same thing? When I say “hulless oats” I mean that they grow without a hull on them, yes, it should be the “naked seeded” oat. They require special care when planting, as they naturally don’t have a hull.

The only process a sproutable oat needs to undergo is the threshing act, which removes it from the stalks and the papery part holding it onto the plant during it’s development.

Mostly what people are buying in “hull-less” oat groats are in fact hulled oats that have had the hull removed in a milling process, to make it more edible. Sometimes it’s not all removed, I take it the process involves abrasion.

When people buy “rolled oats” you can see when you add water, there are scaly bits, those never break down and very high in phytic acid.

The hulless oat varieties are quite soft, but they will sprout, unless heat-treated. They have to, because that’s how farmers propagate “hulless oats” as a crop–planting the raw oat, so it can sprout and grow its own kind.

I’m a farmer, but not in the grain business. However, I will be trying some hulless oats this coming year. They are sensitive to planting because they do not have that tough outer protective shell that a regular hulled oat (most oat varieties) have. Hence, more vulnerable to insect damage, too much or too little moisture, too cold, too hot, etc.

Having started to use them, I love them! I still am using your process, as I assume they have some phytic acid. The ones I buy are sold to sprout; they have not been heat-treated, or they couldn’t sprout.

I actually would like to know if any tests have been done to analyze varieties of hulless oats to compare phytic acid with hulled. Same with hulless barley, wheat, etc. All those that only require threshing and no milling.

If they are dried, as in kiln dried to preserve them as food/feed, you are right, they will not and cannot sprout. They have been “cooked” and the germ is dead. However, the loosening of the hulless grain from the husk on the stem, the papery part I was referring to, does not damage the hulless oat as a “SEED” to be sprouted or planted. If that were true, the varieties would disappear, as they all must be threshed from the stalks, same as any other grain.

Am enjoying your website, and learning more as I go along. Thought I’d pass this info along, in case what I said was confusing to anyone reading. Keep up the good work, super-informative!