Lacto fermented Oats

[HeathP]

I found a recipe the other day for lacto fermented oats; 1 cup of rolled oats 1 cup of water 2 tablespoons of whole fat plain yogurt Combine ingredients and store in an airtight container overnight on your counter to allow it to ferment. The next morning I added 1/2 cup of blueberries and 1 tablespoon of honey for total of 425 calories. It has a nice flavor and is quite filling. It seems like a nice recipe for no cook breakfasts on the trail, just combine all the ingredients the night before. I am planning on doing this on the trail with some Yo quick yogurt so I might have to add a few extra ounces of water and then it probably won't need the honey. The yo quick will add another 100 calories or so to it and be easy to transport and make. If you use dehydrated fruits obviously you will need to add enough water to properly hydrate them or rehydrate them separately before combing ingredients. https://www.mtcapra.com/product/yo-quick/ Has anyone else tried this?

[Anonymous]

I use to make my own yogurt and kefir. I like the idea, and it would work well during warm weather, but lacto bacteria don't do so well in colder or even cooler temps, they really slow down. For yogurt more specifically (kefir is a little less finicky because the yeasts in it seem to have a wider temp range), you want at the very least 75 degrees F for any kind of over night culturing. Ideal temps are closer to 95 to 105 or so. Also quick point, i would start up your own yogurt for this purpose. Processed, store bought yogurt tends to be notoriously weak in the bacterial activity area. Some brands tend to be better than others–some of the organic, grass fed milk brands tend to be better than the major junk food brands like Yoplait, Dannon, etc but it also depends on the individuals stores turn over rates too. But i do like the general idea. It's not well known, but oats contain one of the highest levels of phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient that binds to important minerals and make them unable to be absorbed by the body. The Scots intuitively got around this, traditionally, by soaking oats for a few days and then well cooking them (hours). Something like lacto bacterial culturing might speed up the process of reducing phytic acid, with the added benefit of making it easier to digest.

[Stuart R]

It's not well known, but oats contain one of the highest levels of phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient that binds to important minerals and make them unable to be absorbed by the body. The Scots intuitively got around this, traditionally, by soaking oats for a few days and then well cooking them (hours). Scots do no such thing, because we intuitively know that soaking oats makes almost no difference to their phytic acid content. On the other hand, what you consume with your oats can have a big impact on the binding effect of the phytic acid.

[Anonymous]

Stuart, the book i read about this in, "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges that challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocracts" by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig indicated that old, pre modern recipes found, commonly had instructions for soaking for 3 days, plus hours of cooking. It was the combination of BOTH that reduces the phytic acid levels significantly. I thought that was clear in my post. Your chart references to just 12 hours of soaking, not soaking for days plus cooking. And, i wouldn't say that 25% decrease for 12 hours = "…makes almost no difference to their phytic acid content." If it was only say 5 to 10% i would probably agree, but 25% is 1/4 of a total and could be considered significant. What foods should be eaten with oats etc to decrease the binding effect of the phytic acid? Also to be clear, "traditional" refers to non modern, what your (and mine) further back ancestors typically did, not what Scots may or may not do nowadays. A related example, in traditional Asian cultures, while soy has been used for centuries in a number of them, it was often fermented or cultured in some way, and large amounts of it wasn't eaten. Then come along modern vegetarians or vegans, and some wonder why soy gives them gas or what not, when they eat consistently large amounts of non cultured or fermented forms of it. My body can't handle (digest well/fully) non cultured or fermented soy, but it can handle the fermented/cultured forms fine in moderation. But some of the more dogmatic of these will argue, but Asians have been eating soy for centuries and it seems to have been fine for them not realizing the relativity/complexity of it.

[Stuart R]

JIT, the authoritative book on traditional Scots cooking is "The Scots Kitchen" by F.M. McNeill, first published 1929. The recipe for porridge does not mention soaking and the cooking time is 20-30 minutes. The binding effect of phytic acid is apparently reduced by vitamin C, so eat some fruit with your morning porridge. It is worth rememering that traditional/pre-modern cuisine usually refers to 19th century at the earliest and that some foods considered traditional had not been introduced in earlier times e.g. potatos and oats even.

[Anonymous]

Well, someone should let Sally Fallon and Mary Enig know that they are apparently off about this. The entire book is all about traditional diets around the world and how much our diets have changed from these in general–so you might think they did a certain amount of research in that area. Thank you for the info about vitamin C–i wasn't aware of that. I hadn't heard that traditional cuisine refers to 19th century at the earliest. It make more sense that it refers to all time periods before modern but after purely hunter/gatherer periods, and in this case we could consider modern as after the industrial revolution more generally, and more specifically after electrical refrigeration started to become widespread in the respective country being talked about (foods/diets really started to change after this and modern, petrol based world wide shipping). But i admit to not knowing the "official" definitions on these. I tried to research when exactly oats become a staple food in Scotland (and even when it was first imported), and couldn't find anything more exact as to a specific year or even century, but a number of sources indicated Middle Ages. Middle Ages are generally considered the period between 500 AD to 1500 AD. Apparently both oats and barley were considered the main cereal crops of Scotland for centuries up until recent times (apparently wheat is being imported and used more and more). Not directly related to any of this (but i'm thirsty and we're talking about oats), but i'm a big fan of oatmeal stouts and porters (but i don't drink much, and rarely ever beyond a buzz).

[Stuart R]

The 19th century date for traditional fare is not a definition, it is simply a consequence of the fact that before the 20th century the general population was illiterate and no-one recorded what peasant folk ate. One of the first was McNeill, the daughter of a church minister, who set about recording what the older generation remembered from earlier times. There are some extracts from McNeill's book, including the no-soak porridge recipe and other literature on Sally Fallon's own website. Oats and barley were both introduced into Scotland sometime in the middle ages, possibly during the Medieval Warm Period. Actually it was not the modern form of barley, but a more primitive form called "bere" which incredibly is still grown on some islands (eg Orkney) and beremeal is still produced. These were the main cereal crops for centuries and still are. Other grains do not grow well due to the lattitude and weather. Winter wheat was introduced only very recently. Back to the original topic – I have read that the phytic acid in oats can be reduced by soaking if a grain that contains the enzyme phytase (eg rye or buckwheat) is added to the mix. Oats contain little phytase and even that is destroyed when it is heated and dried. As I eat porridge every morning, I may give that a try.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the further info. Interesting about Bere and phytase.

[Author]

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