You’ve decided that you want to start adding
more whole grains to your diet -
so where do you go from here? Most likely
you will be heading to the grocery
store to stock up on whole grain foods.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Once you
start browsing the bread and cereal aisles,
your excitement over making this
healthy addition to your diet may quickly
turn to confusion over which foods
are actually made with whole grains.
Here are some simple tips you can use to
find healthful whole grain foods.
Read the ingredient statement and nutrition
label.
Just because a loaf of bread is a rich brown
color and looks hearty does not
mean that it is whole grain or high in
fiber. Taking a few moments to scan
the ingredients list will help reveal the
true nature of the grains found in
the food. You should look for one of the
following whole grains as the first
item in the ingredients list:
Whole or rolled oats (regular, quick, or
instant)
Brown or wild rice
Whole wheat
Corn
Buckwheat
Bulgur (cracked wheat)
Quinoa
Watch out for misleading ingredient names.
Now that you know which ingredients are
whole grains, it’s important that you
learn to watch out for ingredients that do
not mean whole grain. Keep an eye
out for the following ingredients when you
are looking for whole grain foods:
100% wheat. This means that the only grain
found in the product is wheat.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that it
contains whole wheat, however.
Stone ground. This term refers to a
technique for grinding grains. It means
that the grain is coarser in texture and the
germ is left intact. The bran
portion of the grain may or may not be
included, however, and therefore the
product may not be whole grain.
Multi-grain. The word multi-grain simply
refers to the fact that more than
one grain was used in the product. The
grains that were used may or may not
have been whole grains.
Pumpernickel. This is a coarse, dark bread
that contains rye and wheat flour.
It does not, however, usually contain whole
grain flour as the primary
ingredient.
