The deal on whole grains
November 30, 2007
The USDA has just published a report on eating whole grains. Who eats them? Hardly anyone, apparently–just 7% of the people surveyed meet recommendations. This 7% is the population segment that reads food labels, buys organic, and eats healthfully anyway. The USDA wrote this to establish a baseline. Stay tuned for the interventions. What should they be?
Yeah, but in the US whole grain is hardly “whole” grain. It’s perhaps a grain that was whole once a long time ago but now is ground into flour (guess what, whole grain flour also spikes glucose levels and insulin production quite fast).
And in packaged foods (cereals, crackers, snacks, breads, pastas, etc.) “made with whole grain” is often marketing hook. It can be a pitifully small amount of whole grain. Multi-grain is just as bad.
But then again, so what. While grains are best consumed soaked/sprouted, whole (that is, in the kernal form, not ground), mostly grains are best consumed in small quantities and infrequently, *not* several times a day the way most people eat them. Whatever micronutrients grains provide, they come with a bucketload of starch, which quickly converts to glucose, which our bodies can’t handle very well in large quantities over the long term. Those same micronutrients can be found in low sugar, low starch foods.
There are no essential carbohydrates, and there are no essential grains.
Comment by Anna — November 30, 2007 @ 11:53 pm
I’m definitely not part of their survey and can’t imagine not using whole grains as often as I can find them. I’m very biased that way and frequently point out to people that they can easily find pita, English muffins, hot dog and burger buns in whole wheat. And then there is bread. Why get something ordinary if you can instead get something interesting and better?
Comment by Gillian — December 1, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
But why eat so much of something, even whole, that we never evolved to eat year round and in high quantity?
Comment by Anna — December 2, 2007 @ 2:58 pm
In reading Marion’s book, I was suprised that she did not discuss /white/ whole wheat flour seriously, which Glezer and Hamelman at least mention in their bread books.
Interestingly, the authors of this report do not discuss phenolic acid and the way in which Asians and women tend to be relative supertasters when it comes to bitter foods such as is common with whole wheat grains, not to mention the textural differences of whole wheat breads!
Comment by leslie — December 28, 2007 @ 7:08 am