Rolled oats

The oat, like some other cereals, has a hard, inedible outer hull that must be removed before the grain can be eaten. After the hulls have been removed the bran-covered oat grains they are called oat groats. Oat groats can be used as cereal, but since the bran layer makes the grains tough to chew and contains an enzyme that can cause the oats to go rancid, oat groats are usually steam-treated to soften them and denature the enzymes. Steel-cut oat groats are grains that have been chopped into smaller pieces and retain bits of the bran layer.

Related Topics:
Oat - Cereal - Hull - Bran-covered - Oat groats - Enzyme - Rancid

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Rolled oats are oat groats that have been rolled into flat flakes under steel rollers. Rolled oats sold as oatmeal usually, but not always, have had the tough bran removed. They have often been lightly baked or pressure-cooked. Thick-rolled oats are large whole flakes, and thin-rolled oats are smaller, fragmented flakes. Oat flakes that have simply had the bran removed can be cooked and eaten as "old-fashioned" oatmeal, but more highly fragmented rolled oats absorb water much more easily and therefore cook faster, so they are sometimes called "quick" or "instant" oatmeal. Oatmeal can be further processed into coarse powder, which, when cooked, becomes a thick broth. Finer oatmeal powder is often used as baby food.

Related Topics:
Oatmeal - Baby food

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