Rick Halloran, age 11, of Orlando, Fla., for his question:
WHERE DO WE GET OATMEAL?
Oatmeal is a wholesome food product that comes from cultivated oats. Most of us eat it as a cooked breakfast cereal. We buy oatmeal in a box at the grocery store, but there's a lot of work that is accomplished before we are able to take the box home and cook the contents.
Oatmeal is made by removing the outer husk of the oat kernel. The groat, or inner portion of the kernel, is next scored to remove part of the outer skin. Then the groat is partially cooked by steaming it and a special machine is used to roll it. Finally the product is weighed and packaged.
Nutritionists tell us that oatmeal is a good source of vitamin B 1. It leads almost all other grain products is food value.
A bowl of oatmeal has about 67 parts of carbohydrates, 16 parts of protein, seven parts of fat, two parts of minerals and seven parts of water.
Oats are one of our most important food crops. Among the cereals, oats rank fourth in worldwide importance, falling not too far behind rice, wheat and corn. The United States and Russia produce almost half of the world's total oat supply.
Leading oat growing states and provinces, in order of their importance, include Minnesota, Alberta, Saskatchewan, South Dakota and North Dakota.
Oats are annual plants that belong to the grass family. They were grown in England as long ago as the 13th Century. The oat stalk ranges from two to four feet in height. It ends in groups of graceful branches called spikelets. The grain grows at the end of the spikelets.
Oats grow in almost every state of the United States but they grow best in the North. Spring is the time for planting, except where mild winters are found, such as the South. There, oats are planted in the autumn.
There are more than 50 known varieties of oats. Only a few of the highest quality are used for human food, chiefly as rolled oats which become oatmeal. By far the greater part of the world crop becomes livestock feed.
Oats provide farmers with one of their best livestock foods. Oats rank as the best of all grains for horses. They are equal to corn as a tissue builder and they have fewer calories and more roughage. Also, no other cereal produces straw that makes such good feed and fertilizer.
In the U.S., the average yield for oats is around 50 bushels per acre. However, scientific methods of cultivation are bringing this average up. In Belgium, Great Britain, Switzerland and The Netherlands the yield is already more than 100 bushels per acre.
Most of the diseases and insects that are enemies of other cereals also attack oats. Rust and smut, both of which are parasitic fungi, actually destroy millions of bushels of oats each year. One way farmers fight fungi is to plant varieties of oats that can resist them.