This is the cereal that has the closest link with the vital edifying forces and that remains green for the longest time. The cultivation of oats is lost in the mists of time: in general, it is traced back to the Chinese, Egyptians and Indians.

The Greeks used it for medicinal purposes, as a tonic and anti-inflammatory. It seems that the plant was imported into Italy by the legionaries of Julius Caesar: during their stay in Gaul and Germany, the soldiers had noticed that the indigenous populations made a very wide use of it: they used it to make bread and polenta.

Tacitus attributed to the plant great qualities: he wrote that, thanks to the high quantities of ingested oats, individuals of the Germanic populations died at a very late age, after having lived a life without diseases.