December 2020 article by Mary Mayer: Green Oatmeal??
While supporting your personal health by eating more whole grains, you can also take a small step to improve the health of our planet Earth by making whole grain oats your first choice. According to a recent report in the Union of Concerned Scientists magazine, oats are the most sustainably grown of the major grain crops in the U.S. Those crops are oats, corn, and wheat. Of these major crops, covering hundreds of thousands of acres across our country, oat agriculture requires the least fertilizer and the lowest pesticide use for successful production. Whole grain oats are also reported to contain almost twice as much vegetable protein as either whole grain wheat or corn. So, if you are helping to ‘green’ our planet by moving away from a meat diet, you can turn to oats for some of that extra protein you need and choosing organic foods as often as you can, helps those farmers who use that ‘green’, sustainable farming method to be profitable and to continue in their efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable agriculture. So, green bread? Green muffins? Yes! But whole grain organic oatmeal is the greenest of all!
