Oat Meal: The War Winner

by James Ritchie Grieve

INTRODUCTION.

At the present time when every one is being urged to bend every energy toward the conservation of food supplies, it is surprising to me that so little has been written in behalf of the extraordinary value of oatmeal as a diet on which people can live and continue more healthy than on any other cereal in the world.

I wish to present facts, not theories. I wish to tell of what I know personally on this subject. I have not consulted any of the laboratories of research or taken for granted any data from the many-published statistics of individual food sufficiency for sustaining life, but I have only taken facts and invite my readers to form their own conclusions.

My father was a successful farmer in Perthshire, Scotland, and employed quite a number of ploughmen. His men were always big strapping fellows, weighing on an average from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy pouds and as strong as oxen. None of those men ever saw a two-bushel sack of grain because we never had such sacks. What they were acquainted with and were accustomed to handle were four-bushel sacks of wheat, weighing sixty-four pounds per bushel, barley weighing fifty-six pounds per bushel. These sacks they would carry on their back and load on their carts and, after being hauled to the city, would again shoulder them and carry them up two and sometimes three flights of stairs in the warehouses. There were few elevators in those days.

Now what had those men for breakfast that morning? Certainly not beefsteak, ham and eggs, toast, or biscuits. No, they had a large bowlful of bcrose. Each man takes his large wooden bowl and puts into it three or four handfuls of oatmeal, a big pinch of salt, then pours boiling water on it, stirs it with the handle of his spoon, adds sweet milk, and eats his breakfast. When the noon hour comes he goes through the same process; and after the work is finished for the day he generally has a bowl of oatmeal parridge.

The whole time occupied is probably ten minutes. Then after smoking a pipe for ten minute more he is ready for a day of strenuous work. Each man possesses a half-gallon tin bucket, and that is filled at the dairy every morning before breakfast with sweet milk, and that lasts him for the day. No labor is too hard for those men. They can stand any strain put before them and never complain of being hungry. I never heard the least complaint of indigeston, and the doctor would have starved to death if he had depended on these ploughmen for patients. The allowance of meal is seventy pounds every four weeks, and that is all you require to give them. Often these men don’t see a piece of meat in months and very seldom do they eat wheat bread. Scotland has been called the “Land o’ Cakes” from the fact that an excellent cake can be made of oatmeal. The cakes are rolled thin and toasted before an open fire until they are quite hard. I have eaten oatmeal cakes in Virginia that were baked in Scotland, two or three months previously and after being heated through they were as crisp as if newly baked.

I grew up amid these surroundings and am familiar with every detail. I had my porridge twice a day all through my young life, and the development in my individual case was quite satisfactory. I often tell people that I was brought up on oatmeal and the New Testament, which is true; and I can truthfully testify to the excellency of the combination. Another important fact, especially at the present time, is that we never though of adding sugar to our oatmeal. Those ploughmen would have as soon thought of sprinkling epsom salts on their porridge as sugar. To this day nothing gives me such satisfaction at breakfast as a bowl of oatmeal and milk. To eat a bountiful supply of oatmeal and suppliment it with meat, eggs, etc., is a great mistake. It is too nurtitious and impedes digestion. In those days such terms as calorics, protein, carbohydrates were never used and need never be used when speaking of oatmeal. I ask one question: If oatmeal does tnot contain all the elements of a perfect food, how did those ploughmen stand up to their hard work and seldom complain of hunger and more seldom need the services of the doctor? It regulates the intestinal canal like clock work.

Sweet milk is absolutely necessary to complete the perfect diet. Any substitute, whether molasses, butter, or sugar, does harm. There should be a generous supply of salt in making porridge and that does away with the craving for sugar. I often meet people, doctors included, who declare that porridge ought to be cooked for six or eight hours. My only answer to that falacy is to point to my brosemen. When Oats go to the mill they are put into a kiln and subjected to considerable heat until the hull cracks and they are three-fourths cooked, then they are sifted and ground either coarse or fine as you wish. We had no flaked oats in those days, and I cannot say whether the smashing flat process is an injury or betterment to the cereal; but I prefer the coarse-ground oats, as that was what the men I refer to were fed. I am only stating facts, as I have experienced them, and I stick to my original statement that oatmeal used as the Scotish ploughmen use it is satisfactory in every particular as to giving nourishment and preserving health.

What a saving of time it makes for the housekeeker—just about half an hour for breakfast and supper, few dishes to wash, and no greasy plates to encounter. For dinner you may omit the oats and take what you prefer.

In American hotels and boarding houses, also in private homes, oatmeal is served in small quantities in small saucers as a side dish. It ought to be the main and only dish both morning and evening.