Whole Grain Vs. Whole Wheat - What s the best for you? Part I
We have all seen it, 100% whole wheat bread that sits next to the white bread. It looks like white bread, but it says enriched. Enriched with what? Well, let me back up a little. When wheat is harvested the whole grain is taken to the refinery. REFINERY, did you see that! The wheat is heated to a point when the germ and the bran fall off. What is left is the starch, the white part, the not good for you part. The part that has a long shelf life and is bug resistant. Do you know why it is bug resistant? Bugs CANNOT sustain life in it. They will die if they only eat this refined grain. So why on earth, with the abundance of good life sustaining food do we eat white flour, which is the starch of the wheat grain ground up. Honestly do I need to answer that? Take a look around and you will see obesity on the rise, and now not only are adults overweight, but kids, little kids are getting more and more fat. Why? We are feeding ourselves all kinds of unhealthy food. Some do it because it is cheaper, some because of taste, and some just because they don’t know any better.

So now that I explained what white bread is made of, let me continue to answer the question of “what exactly is enriched”? After the refinery takes the grains apart and makes white flour, which has no nutrition, they add some vitamins, some minerals, and some fiber, but not even a gram worth. The white bread is enriched with some of the very things they just worked so hard to take out. However, they do not add in as much of the grain they take away, otherwise it would be whole grain. Just enough to add some flavor and calories to it.

What is whole grain? It is the WHOLE grain used in the process of making bread, cereal and the building blocks of many other foods. For it to be truly healthy whole grain needs to be listed on your bread, cereal or other food in the number 1 or number 2 position on the ingredients list. No, whole wheat flour which is followed by (enriched white flour, niacin, and iron) is not healthy, it is a way of making people believe that they are getting a whole grain bread. They are not lying, it is whole wheat flour, but not whole grain. It did come from the wheat plant and it is all wheat, but not all grain. Whole is just another word like all. If you look a little farther down on the list you will see molasses, why molasses you ask? It colors the bread to make it look brown. Yup, white flour plus vitamins and minerals still does not bring the bran back into the bread. Bran is what helps to give the natural brown color to bread. So, they again, add something to it, to try and make it look like something it is not.

Linda Cramer is the owner of Oregon Gourmet Foods and Gifts. Visit our website. http://www.oregongourmetfoods.com

Tags: health, wheat breads, white breads, whole grain, whole wheathealth, wheat breads, white breads, whole grain, whole wheat

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Here is an easy way of finding the healthiest breads and cereals that you can. Number one, look for the words WHOLE GRAIN. Look at the first two ingredients, if one those two do not say WHOLE GRAIN, put it back! Number 2, look for the FDA-approved health claim that reads “In a low fat diet, whole grain foods may reduce the risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer”. That sounds easy enough doesn’t it. Now you have no more excuses when you are at the store. You can find healthy breads and cereals for you and your family.

Well, we know how to find whole grain foods, but even at that, there is still discrepancy between how much whole grain should be in the food to make it the healthiest. Look once again at the nutritional statement on the box. There are two things you really want to look for. Fiber grams and Sugar grams. High fiber, low sugar is the best bet. So, what is high fiber, what is low sugar? The FDA will usually only put their mark of approval on foods that are good or excellent sources of fiber. A good source of fiber has 6-10 grams of fiber per serving. An excellent source of fiber has 16 or more grams of fiber per serving. Using this as your guide, you need only to eat 3 servings of an excellent source of fiber, or 6 of the good sources of fiber. As far as sugar goes you should eat foods with 2 grams or less of sugar per serving. The more sugar in the servings, the less fiber that will be in it. The more fiber, the less sugar. Lets look at a new trend General Mills is coming up with. Take the new whole grain, low sugar Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We need to look at both boxes to compare this. Here is the regular cereals stats. 130 Calories, 10 grams of sugar and 1 gram of fiber. How about the new cereal, 120 calories, 2 grams of sugar and 2 grams of fiber. General mills has done a pretty good job. If you have to eat cinnamon toast crunch, then this will be better than the original. But does it stack up to our new found knowledge? NO! There is hardly any fiber in this cereal to make it a good source of fiber. It would not be considered a good source, or an excellent source. They did manage to make it look better on paper however, or cardboard to be exact. How about one of those healthy cereals? Let’s look at Kashi GoLean Crunch. It says seven whole grains, it has 190 calories per serving, 8 grams of fiber and 13 grams of sugar, it also contains 9 grams of protein. When looking at the nutritional facts on the box the first set of ingredients is, whole oats, whole long grain brown rice, whole rye, whole hard red winter wheat, whole triticale, whole buckwheat, whole barley, and sesame seeds. The second item is soy protein concentrate, and the third is evaporated cane juice, followed by brown rice syrup. So we are getting better on our choices here. Even with the high sugar content, which is all natural by the way, they do have whole grains, and multi-grains at that. I am not saying natural sugar is really much better for you , but at least it is not the refined white sugar that we see so often. These natural sugars will still affect your blood sugars, but will take a little longer than refined sugar. Put this cereal next to our new set of standards and how does it stack up? Well, we are doing good on fiber, the added protein is a good addition, sugar however is still above the recommended health benefit. Is it good for you? It is better than even the whole grain low sugar Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but you will need to decide if this is the best you can do.

So, with all this information what should we do? We should try to make the best choices available. If you are afraid that eating healthier will cause you to be slaving away in the kitchen you need to realize that there are so many products out there that are good for you and easy to fix. Take for example the Grinin Grains line. Home made batches of scone mix, pancake mix, waffle mixes, and cereal mixes. These are made in small batches using the whole grain and priding themselves on the healthiness of their product. Breads, cereals, pastas, and even baked goods are beginning to come around and make the change to provide a healthier food choice for your family. Shouldn’t you try and do the same?

Linda Cramer is the owner of Oregon Gourmet Foods and Gifts. Come visit our site at http://www.oregongourmetfoods.com

Tags: health, wheat breads, white breads, whole grain, whole wheathealth, wheat breads, white breads, whole grain, whole wheat

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