Yinshan Oats

Yinshan Oats

　　Inner Mongolia has many uniquely named and distinctive local foods, such as dui wo wo, nie yu yu, juan tun tun, bao jiao jiao, as well as chao kuilei, kao binggan, ya he luo, all of which are traditional foods meticulously made from Yinshan oats. Every visitor to Inner Mongolia gets to taste these distinctive foods made with Yinshan oats as the main ingredient, which is why Yinshan oats are quite famous.

　　Oats are also called you mai, or simply oats. They are naturally cold-resistant and best suited to growing in dry, barren areas. “The counties both in front of and behind the mountain grow them widely,” where “the mountain” refers to the Yinshan Mountains. This area enjoys abundant sunshine, making it perfectly suitable for cultivating oats, which have a short growth cycle, strong adaptability, cold resistance, and a preference for sunlight. As early as the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods, farmers in the Yinshan region began planting oats, and to this day the area north and south of Yinshan remains a major oat-producing region in China.

　　Oats are generally eaten as oatmeal. They are high in protein but very low in fat. Yinshan oats are rich in various nutrients essential to the human body, such as phosphorus, iron, calcium, vitamins, amino acids, and fatty acids, making them very beneficial to health.