WITH SLEUTHING, YOU CAN GET WHOLE GRAINS

Star-Telegram, Fort Worth/Dallas
March 29, 2005

Go ahead, have a piece of bread. Have three. Make it whole-grain, and you'll be following government advice for eating right.

Three servings of whole grains daily will reduce your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It doesn't have to be bread. Brown or wild rice, oatmeal, cold cereal flakes, popcorn -- without the salt and butter -- and even trail mix will do.

Of all the advice in the government's new dietary guidelines, eating enough whole grains may prove the easiest.

But if eating whole grains is so easy, then why aren't people doing it now? Most Americans are eating one serving or less each day, according to the Agriculture Department.

One reason may be that a little sleuthing is needed to figure out which foods have whole grains.

Just because a bread slice is dark or a cracker looks grainy doesn't mean the whole grain is there. They could be darkened by molasses or other coloring.

You need to look on the ingredient list to make sure you've got whole grains. The words "whole" or "whole grain" should come before the grain ingredient. And that should be the first thing listed.

Many food companies are trying to make it easier. General Mills converted all of its breakfast cereals to whole grain last year and now puts a "Whole Grain" logo on the front of the box.

Some companies are using a black-and-gold label shaped like a postage stamp to mark products that contain whole grains. Bruegger's Bagels, Kashi, Gardenburger and Snyder's of Hanover are among those using the stamp, which was developed by Oldways Preservation Trust, a Boston-based think tank that specializes in food issues.

"If you have a cereal high in whole grains and you have a sandwich with whole grain bread for lunch, you can get your number of servings right there," said Joanne Lupton, a Texas A&M University nutrition professor who helped write the guidelines.

Mark Andon, technical director for nutrition at Quaker, said a cup of oatmeal for breakfast counts as two servings of whole grains.
This effort may seem to contradict the thinking behind popular low-carb diets such as Atkins and South Beach. But while those diets instruct people to eliminate most carbohydrates in the first two weeks, after that it's all about choosing "good" carbs, such as whole grains.

Scientists don't quite understand how and why whole grains are good for you.

"It would be nice if we knew the answer to that question; unfortunately, we don't," Lupton said. "It's not just the fiber. It's something in addition to that that has to do with having the whole grain."