Back in 1988, almost entirely out of left field, Canberra experienced a severe oat-bran shortage. Throughout the entire region, no one was able to get their hands on the suddenly coveted item.
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Only the occasional 500g packet shipment was arriving from Sydney. The seemingly 'vanilla' item only became available in Australia about two years prior.
The primary reason for the sudden high demand was the visit of American medical writer Robert Kowalski who was promoting his new book The Eight-Week Cholesterol Cure.
The book was based on his own dietary practices for reducing his cholesterol levels after one heart attack and two coronary bypass operations. He promoted the reduced consumption of saturated fats and having a half cup of oat-bran daily.
The soaring demand of the item began only six weeks prior after a report, based on Kowalski's book, was released. Similarly, his book also became extremely scarce. Healthy Life, located in Belconnen, usually moves five packets a week but was caught off-guard when six units vanished in several hours.
The supply of oat bran only slowly trickled in after that as they managed to sell 100 packets in just two hours. Despite their feeble attempts to control the demand through price hikes, the oat bran packets kept disappearing off the shelf.
Oat-bran is produced during the same milling process as oat flour. Manufacturers actually had to throw out the oat flour to keep up with the demand for oat-bran with some encouraging patrons to consume rolled oats instead as it had similar benefits.
