Botanical Name
- Family Gramineae
- Avena sativa
Common Names
- Oatmeal, Groats, Straw, Grain
Cautions
- None listed.
Description
Oats is a familiar annual grass, growing to three feet in height, producing straight hollow stems, bladelike leaves, and small spikes holding the seed grains. Native to northern Europe, it is now grown worldwide in temperate regions as a cereal crop. Its medicinal parts are harvested just before the height of the flowering season then quickly dried.
Key Actions
Key Components
- saponins
- alkaloids
- sterols
- flavonoids
- silicic acid
- starch
- proteins (including gluten)
- vitamins (especially B vitamins),
- minerals (especially calcium)
Medicinal Parts
- Seeds, straw (dried stems)
Traditional Uses
Today, oats is best known as a nutritious cereal. Its bran lowers cholesterol, and an oat-based diet raises stamina. It is a staple for the convalescent after a long illness.
Oats, and oat straw in particular, are a tonic when taken medicinally. Oat straw is prescribed by herbalists to treat general debility and a wide range of nervous conditions gently raising energy levels while supporting an over-stressed nervous system.
Oats are used to treat depression and nervous exhaustion, as well as profound lethargy that results from multiple sclerosis, chronic neurological pain, and insomnia. With insomnia, it is thought that oats stimulate sufficient nervous energy to make sleep possible.
Externally, oats are used as an emollient and an excellent skin cleanser with a balanced pH for sensitive skin or where conditions make it impossible to use commercial creams and soaps. A decoction added to a bath helps soothe skin itchiness, including such conditions as eczema.
They are used also for atonia of the bladder, connective tissue deficiencies, excitation, gout, kidney ailments, rheumatism, skin diseases, insomnia, stress, and bladder weakness.
Infusions of oat straw are used for flu and coughs.
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