[mochaccino]

...for BE? It says avena sativa, but I heard that "wild oats" usually refers to avena fatua. Does it even matter? I'm asking you since you're the only person I've seen point out the fact that the "oats" talked about on this site are wild oat extract, not oatmeal. How come everyone always just says "oats"

[Isabelle]

I'm also confused about this. Eve M also recommends Avena sativa, and she should know, because her program was given to her by her grandmother, who is a practicing herbalist.

I just checked my parents' 1948 Flora yesterday. It lists more oats that grow in the wild in the Netherlands:
Gold oats: avena flavescens, reclassified as trisetum flavescens
Oats: avena fatua
Soft oats: avena pubescens
Early oats: avena praecox, reclassified as aira praecox
Silver oats: avena caryophyllea, reclassified as aira caryophyllea

Since the others were already reclassified in 1948, the only possible alternatives for avena sativa are indeed avena fatua, and maybe avena pubescens. I remember I've seen soft oats (avena pubescens) mentioned somewhere in the NBE field too. My trusted herbal shop www.vanderpigge.nl only carries avena sativa, though.

My herbal also says the medicinal oats is avena sativa. The avena sativa oat tops (the seeds ) in Eve M's program are a source of large quantities of essential aminoacids, B vitamins, vitamin E, iron, zinc, manganese, so it's easy to see why they are in the program. Oat straw could also be useful, but only as a source of zinc.

What got me worried is this: the acne crowd actually list avena sativa as an androgen:
http://www.acne.org/messageboard/Phyto-Androgens-t185292.html&hl=phyto-androgen
Is it? Or would that be another avena variety?

And I can add another question: The oats in flakes you can buy as breakfast cereal, e.g. from Quaker Oats, are they the right avena variety? The process to make flakes from the oat tops could maybe destroy some vitamins (how hot are they dried?), and certainly any phyto-androgens if present, in which case the flakes may even be better than the raw tops.

Please help us on this one.

[mochaccino]

Thanks! I think I'm comfortable taking Eve's word on this one. Not to mention that Greenbush normally knows what their doing.

[Isabelle]

You're welcome. And Eve and Greenbush are two trusted sources indeed. I also found this old thread:
http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?tid=5238&highlight=oats

[Isabelle]

It occurred to me after writing the above posts that "sativa" is Latin for seeds, and "avena" for oats. So "avena sativa" just means that you need the oat seeds, or oat tops, as opposed to oat straw. Eve wrote in her program thread that you need oat tops, not oat straw.

While being seeds, "avena sativa" could still be either wild, i.e. from a botanical variety of oats (avena fatua or avena pubescens), or from some cultivar that is designed for maximum $ per acre in agriculture. I'm sure my herb shops will sell a wild variety, but I'll ask around whether it's avena fatua or avena pubescens.