A Grain Flaker- My New Preparedness Tool

Looks like wheat kernels, doesn't it?  It's not.  It's whole oat groats. This is how your morning bowl of oatmeal begins.  It's a far cry from what we usually buy in the grocery store though.  Steel cut oats would be the closest thing you could get to it.  Next in line would be old fashioned rolled oats, followed by quick cooking and then instant, each one becoming more and more processed.  Quick cooking and instant are popular because we are a society that wants everything in a hurry.  Unfortunately, the more processed a food becomes, the worse it seems to be for our bodies.  A bowl of good old fashioned oatmeal, with a little sweetener and fruit is one of the healthiest breakfasts you can eat.  But have you taken a look lately at all the flavors of instant oatmeal available?  Apple crisp, cinnamon roll and banana bread... I mean are we having breakfast or dessert?  Flavored is usually a code word for lots of sugar.  It's so easy to flavor your own, with real fruit and stevia, I'm not sure why anyone would want to buy the imitation (you do know that's not real fruit, right?) stuff.  The real thing always tastes better.  My favorite combinations are canned apples with nuts and cinnamon or peaches, strawberries or blueberries and cream (not really- it's just milk), or dried fruit, like raisins, cranberries, apricots or cherries. Yum!!!  My oatmeal is not boring!

For the past few years, I've been eating steel cut oats.  You can go here to see an easy way to let them cook overnight, so all you have to do is reheat in the morning. (There's also a nice recipe for granola and a killer oatmeal cookie recipe on the same post.)  Steel cut is my favorite way to eat oats, but I also like old fashioned rolled oats too.  And here's where my new kitchen toy comes in.  I found a resource for a grain flaker.  I never imagined that I could roll my own oats at home, but with this tool I can.  I put the oat groats into the top of the flaker

and start turning the handle.  Yes, it's manual, but it didn't take very long for me to roll a bowl of oats, and my arms got a nice little work out in the process.

Pretty neat, huh?  It almost looks like store bought.  The flakes aren't as perfectly shaped as Quakers, but hey, these are one of a kind, homemade rolled oats.   They're not supposed to look like they've been processed on commercial machines.

With a little help from Kenzie and Mark, we refilled my oatmeal container with our own freshly flaked oats in about ten minutes.  I had a nice big bowl for breakfast the next day and it was delicious. I thought it was better than any I've bought in the store, but I might be biased, seeing as how I put a little effort into working for my breakfast.  The things we work for bring extra satisfaction and enjoyment, right?

So here's why I'm really excited about having my own grain flaker. If I wanted to store oatmeal as part of my food storage preparedness program (and I do), the shelf life on processed oats is less than whole grains that I process myself.  For short term storage, oats purchased in the grocery store are fine. In time, the quality will deteriorate though.  They need to be used and rotated regularly.  I've had some rolled oats in large buckets (that weren't nitrogen packed) that had a funny smell when I opened them and I didn't use them.  Okay, if I'd been starving, I would have eaten them, but this was not the case.  When properly packaged, long term storage items can sit in my pantry and I don't have to worry about using them for years, if I don't want to.  We live in uncertain times and may not always have access to the abundance of food that we now enjoy.  It's a good idea to store food for your family.  You can go here if you'd like to learn more about starting your own food storage program.