The Food Science of Organic Oats

As demand grows for organic grains and healthier foods, oats stand out as a crop that's good for farmers and consumers alike. Growing a high-quality, safe, organic oat isn't simple, though. That's where the food science side of Penn State's organic oats research comes in. In the Wee lab, led by food scientist Dr. Josephine Wee, postdoctoral scholar Nataliia Voloshchuk and Masters student Riley Brooke are studying the nutritional composition and safety of organic spring oats, making sure that what starts in a healthy field remains healthy on the table.

For farmers, there's a lot to like about oats. They fit well into crop rotations, and help support soil health, making them a beneficial addition to an organic cropping system. From a nutrition standpoint, oats are naturally gluten-free and contain less starch and more digestible protein, total dietary fiber, healthy fats, and beneficial compounds than many other grains. Those qualities make oats appealing, both to growers looking to diversify their fields, and to consumers looking for nutritious options: a combination that can strengthen local small grain economies. 

A major focus of the lab's work is grain safety, particularly the threat posed by mycotoxins produced by fungi, which are the primary research focus of postdoctoral scholar Nataliia Voloshchuk. Mycotoxins are toxic compounds produced by certain fungi that infect grain crops during the growing season, and they're widespread in the Mid-Atlantic region. Beyond the health concerns they pose at certain thresholds, mycotoxins and diseases like Fusarium head blight can affect the price received for an oat crop, since contaminated oats may not meet buyers' standards. Understanding how to keep mycotoxin levels low is therefore central to making organic oats a dependable crop for farmers and a safe food for consumers. 

To get there, the lab is digging into how an oat variety's genetics shape the traits farmers and consumers care about most: how well it grows under organic management and local climate conditions, how nutritious it is, and how safe it is to eat. It's a "farm to plate" approach that follows the grain through the whole system, from the variety planted in the field to the quality of the final product.  

PhD student Riley Brooke studies what makes an oat nutritious and what makes it safe to eat. On the nutrition end, that means examining the grain's nutritional composition and the bioactive metabolites that give oats much of their health value. One of those metabolites, ergothioneine, has piqued her interest. It is a dietary antioxidant and is produced by fungi and other soil microbes rather than by plants themselves. So it must travel from the soil into the crop. A central question in Riley's work is whether, and how much, oats take that compound up from the ground beneath them. Alongside that, she tracks the safety side of the grain by identifying fungi present on the oat grain with a focus on Fusarium species and Fusarium-associated mycotoxins. Her work ties soil health, plant health, and human health together. 

Brooke is excited about the research because of OROWS' multidisciplinary scope: she gets to work alongside researchers in other areas like soil and weed science. She enjoys seeing everyone's areas of expertise come together on a single project. Having Penn State Extension involved is what makes the work meaningful and impactful to her. 

Early findings from the research are encouraging. Even though organic oats can't be treated by disease-preventing synthetic chemicals, mycotoxin levels remain acceptably low - a good sign for safety and marketability. The team is also comparing hulless and hulled oats: hulless varieties, which grow without a hull, tend to have higher protein content than their hulled counterparts, making them especially attractive on the nutrition front. 

Climate change adds urgency to this work because the fungi that produce mycotoxins thrive in warm, wet conditions. So, shifting weather patterns can raise or change contamination risk from season to season. That makes it increasingly important to predict how different oat varieties will perform and stay safe as growing conditions change, so farmers can choose cultivars that hold up under an uncertain climate.  

Taken together, the Wee lab's work helps ensure that the push toward organic oats delivers on its promise a crop that's good for the soil, good for farmers' bottom lines, and safe and nutritious for the people who eat it.