Oats are one of my ultimate comfort foods. Golden, creamy, filling, tasty - what is there not to love? It's been that way for me for a long time. Long before I realised that huge swathes of my English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestors subsisted on oats, sometimes eating them three times a day for many generations.

Today we'll focus on the oat, and fermenting oats. Finally Andrea let me out of my cage to talk about some of the research I've been doing into this wonderful grain over the last year. Listen in and I'm sure you'll hear things that you did not know about oats.

We'll talk about five reasons why you'd want to ferment your oats. We'll give you a brief history of the grain and some traditional examples of oat fermentation. We'll talk about the sad way that most oats are eaten these days, and then we'll get practical, and give you details of how to ferment your oats and, as you'll hear Andrea say early on, stay to the end for some potentially controversial information which has come from my latest research into oats and phytic acid. It's probably not what you're expecting to hear, it's certainly wasn't what what I was expecting to find out, and it's changed how I eat my oats.

This episode is literally jam-packed with information. You might need to listen to the science-y bits towards the end a couple of times to get them under your belt, but I hope it will inform, inspire and get you super-clear on this wonderful golden grain, and how you can bring it to life with fermentation in your own kitchen.

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What we cover:

• 5 reasons to ferment your oats
• a brief history of oats
• some traditional examples of oat fermentation
• how most oats are eaten these days
• why didn't the Scottish ferment their oats?
• details of how to ferment oats
• Alison's latest research into phytic acid and oats

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Resources:

Alison's Zoom-recorded course Fermenting Oats (which is now free!)

Alison's course Sowans, The Scottish Oat Ferment

The blog post explaning Alison's thoughts on why the Scottish didn't ferment their oats

Sign up for Alison's newsletter for the latest on her planned oat book project!

The post Andrea asked Alison to share about the making of Lancashire oatcakes

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