Oats from Australia

High quality quick cooking rolled oats from Australia.

The oats are the finely rolled kind that work well for a quick cereal with milk or for a quick porridge.

You could say that we are picky with our oats. We test in different ways, we smell them and eat them raw and cooked ourselves, before we decide which sort we will bring to our customers.

We chose these Australian oats, because we think they have a particularly delicious taste. The have a fresh smell with a light nutty tone to it.

There is near zero amount of husk residue in these oats. In our opinion it is annoying to find husk in a serving of oatmeal. But more importantly, we think oats need to be zero husk to be suitable for cooking oatmeal for children. This concern weighed in on our choice of these Australian oats. We find near zero husk residue in these oats.

We are sure these high quality Australian oats will not disappoint you. This is as good as oats get.

Oats is a good and healthy stable to have in the kitchen that gives a natural support to a lean and protein rich diet. You may also consider using whey protein and casein in your diet.

Different kinds of oats

When we think about oats, we most likely think about rolled oats. The kind of oats that we often have for breakfast and use in baking and different kinds of cookies. To make sure you know what you get, if you take home our oats, here comes an overview of what kinds of oats are most common.

We have three common main categories, then a few more that are not quite as common. Let's take a look at the most common types:

• Rolled Oats, also known as "Old-fashioned oats"
• Quick cooking oats
• Instant oats

Rolled Oats

These oats have the biggest and thickest flakes. The whole oat groats are steamed and flattened into flakes by passing them between big rollers. They take about 15 minutes to cook into oatmeal. The cooking time is shortened if you soak the oats for 8-24 hours before cooking.

Quick Cooking Oats

Also called quick cooking rolled oats. They take the same starting point as the old-fashioned oats, but are cut into smaller pieces before they are steamed and rolled. The flakes are smaller and thinner and they take about 5 minutes to cook into oat meal.

This is the most convenient type of oats to use for an easy and quick cooking of oatmeal. It is also the most suitable kind if you prefer to eat your oats raw with milk or soy- or almond milk.

Instant Oats

The instant oats are cooked before they are rolled into flakes. The pre-roll cooking softens the oats so much that you can cook them into oatmeal in a one and a half minutes. They are often packed into portions and mixed with sugar, salt and perhaps spices or flavor. However, you may want to pay attention to where the carbs come from with prepacked instant oats, as they can contain up to 35% powdered sugar.

How to use

The old fashioned oats gives more texture to an oatmeal. They may retain the good oaty flavor for longer than the quick cooking oats. You can generally substitute the old fashioned oats and quick cooking oats for each other in any baking recipe. But, bear in mind that perhaps some cookies you can get too rough to chew if using the old-fashioned.

It is not a good idea to substitute the old-fashioned or quick cooking oats with instant oats in a recipe. The instant oats provide much less texture and may soften a bread more than you want.

What else of oats is around?

In one end of the spectrum we have the oat flour. This can be used for making oatmeal for kids. On the fitness nutrition scene you sometimes find it in mass gainers and some protein powders.

On the other end of the spectrum we have whole oat groats or broken whole oat groats. They can be used in baking and a well soaked oat meal or a multi grain porridge mix.

Moving slightly away from whole oat groats towards the old-fashioned oats, we have a handful of oat styles that are cut. They are less tough than whole oat groats and broken whole oats, but more tough than old-fashioned oats. As a group, they are kind of similar in character and the names are steel-cut oats, Scottish oats, pinhead oats and Irish steel-cut oatmeal.

It becomes a religious question whether you prefer one of the steel-cuts or the other. Sensing the difference in texture and flavor in a cooked oatmeal from one of these, is field for connoisseurs.

If you want to cook one of the steel-cuts into oatmeal it is definitely a good idea to soak the oats overnight. They all make for a good sturdy oaty aromatic oatmeal. However, they are not the most suitable to use directly in a raw cereal with milk kind of breakfast. They are too hard to chew.

Yến Mạch

Yến Mạch is the Vietnamese name for oats. Oats is not a part of traditional food in Vietnam. It is not a stable in a traditional Vietnamese kitchen. The parts of the population in Vietnam who consume oats are primarily expats and Vietnamese who have lived overseas.

Is oats grown in Vietnam?

No. Vietnam is not an oats growing country. It is also not a wheat growing country for that matter. Vietnam grows rice and that's it, when we look at it from a grains perspective. Vietnam is one of the worlds major rice producers and exporters. Wheat is the second most popular grain in Vietnam, and import and consumption is growing. In the bigger picture, oats play a small role as a grain in Vietnam.

All oats available in Vietnam are imported. The top 5 oats growing countries in the world today are Russia, Canada, Poland, Finland and Australia. In Tigerwhey we have our eyes primarily on oats produced in Australia and Canada. Over time you will find both Canadian and Australian oats available in our webshop.

We find that the quality of oats is the best from these two countries. Firstly, the food safety legislation and control procedures works well in these countries. Secondly, the technology at the mills in Australia and Canada is developed to a high level. This matters a lot, not the least to the amount of husk or hull residue in the final product we supply our customers.

Husk and hull

The outer shell of oat cereal grains is called husk or hull. It is the light outer shell that protects the kernel of the oats. It consists mainly of cellulose. The hull is removed by a mechanical process at the mill.

Here comes a question of the quality of the technology at the mill that hulls the oat grains. If the quality is lower, you will find more pieces of hull in the final cereal product. If the technology is better you find less.

Tigerwhey oats are near-zero hulls

With the oats you get from Tigerwhey, we strive to source them from high quality mills that provide near-zero husk oats. Oats are a natural product that has been exposed to a relatively low degree of refinement. It is a seed that has been harvested, hulled, cleaned, steamed, rolled, dried, and that's it. And then you cook it and eat it. The final oats we eat are not far from the product harvested at the farm.

Being in a category of low degree of refinement, a close to nature product, we probably cannot achieve zero hull oats. But we can get pretty close. The Tigerwhey requirement are these: if you are person who eats oatmeal for breakfast every day, then you have about 100 grams of oats 7 days a week. That is 700 grams of oats in a week. We accept 1 piece of hull in a week. We accept on average about 1.5 piece of hull in 1kg of oats.

As an average, the oats from Tigerwhey meet this requirement.

Is oats gluten free?

Yes, oats is 100% gluten free. Gluten is a storage protein, a so called prolamin, primarily found in wheat, barley and rye. It is not found in oats. If you have, or think you may have, a gluten allergy, you will be safe from that with oats.