The entire plant is rich in minerals and trace nutrients such as silica, magnesium, phosphorus, chromium, iron, calcium, alkaloids, protein, the vitamin B complex, and vitamins A and C (Holmes, 1997 and Berger, 1998). The resulting drink is light, cooling, grassy, slightly sweet, and very nutritious.
The ideal way to consume oatstraw’s nutritive and medicinal qualities is in an infusion made by steeping one ounce of dried oatstraw (and dried milky oat tops, if desired) in four cups of boiling water for 4-12 hours. Oatstraw is the name given to the stem of the oat plant harvested during the milky oat stage, when it is still green. Alternatively, milky oats can be dried and used as a nutritive tonic, and are a beautiful addition to tea blends. Tincturing the milky oats while fresh preserves their bioactive potency. This stage, which lasts approximately one week, occurs after the oat begins flowering and before the seed hardens and becomes the oat grain we eat as oatmeal. Milky oats are the oat tops harvested when they are in their milky stage, during which the oat tops release a white, milky sap when squeezed. Milky oat tops and the oatgrass stem also have much nourishment and medicine to offer.
Humankind has focused so much on the calorie-dense oat grain as a food source, we’ve neglected its medicinal uses, not to mention those of the other parts of the plant. It’s interesting how knowledge of a plant can become lost even as it is daily right under our noses. Such a beautiful name, Avena sativa, known by most as the common oat.
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