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The Whole Truth About Whole Grains and Your Health

Many of our food choices are automatic and made without full knowledge or awareness, and grain especially suffers from dietary confusion...

It’s no wonder people are confused. Carbs have been vilified for decades. Then came the gluten-free fad (gluten is a problem for people with celiac, or a gluten sensitivity). Although people love bread, only a few of them believe that whole grain breads are a healthy food. Somehow, we became so nutritionally confused that we don’t recognize whole grains as the foundation of the human diet from the beginning of time.

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Featured

  How to Cook Farro (and Literally Every Other Grain) Perfectly, Every Time

Follow these steps to perfectly cook any grain, from farro and millet to wild rice and quinoa.

 Are whole-grain foods really healthier?

Health officials love whole grains. But are they really superior to refined-grain foods like white rice, bread and pasta?

 Diets like Paleo and Whole30 are getting grains all wrong

Far from the foodstuff of mindless drones, grains are the building blocks of civilization.

 Nearly all Americans fail to eat enough of this actual superfood

While we obsess about carbs and protein, we’ve ignored fiber — at our peril.

 Your body needs whole grains. Here’s how to find the most effective ones

Whole grains reduce the risk of many chronic diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cancer. But you need to know how to navigate labels.

Articles of Interest

Beyond quinoa: five European grains to add to a healthy diet

While we're obsessed with trendy grains and life-changing superfoods from abroad, we often forget to look closer to home

Radical Eating

What will be the next quinoa? That’s up to you. The typical Western diet—heavy on meat, starch, and sweets—is taking over the world. From Mexico to China, changes in what people eat are driving up rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

Thoroughly Modern Millet

How to eat whole grains.

Try the hot trend in whole grains

Ancient grains have become the darlings of the culinary world, and they're healthy, too.

Whole-Grain Foods Not Always Healthful

Often synonymous with good health, whole grains may lack heart-healthy fiber—in fact, some processed forms increase cardiovascular risks.

America has corn and Asia has rice. It’s time Australia had a native staple food

Most countries have a staple food: native, fast-growing and easy-to-store plants high in carbohydrates. In Africa, it’s sorghum. In Asia, rice. In the Americas, corn and potato. Around the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East and Europe, it’s wheat and barley. Australia is an exception – we do not have a staple food.

Ancient grains are misnamed and their health benefits are unconfirmed

KHORASAN, teff, emmer and amaranth. No, these aren’t planets in the next Star Wars movie, but some of the growing range of wheat alternatives that are increasingly filling supermarket shelves (and “wellness guru” Instagram feeds) everywhere. Said to be untouched by modern plant breeders, who have apparently rendered wheat an unhealthy option, these “ancient grains” can supposedly transform your health. But what exactly are these foods, and are they as beneficial as claimed? Here’s the first thing: ancient grains are often anything but.

Beyond Quinoa: The New Ancient Grains

You’ve cooked your way through quinoa of every color, dabbled in amaranth and moved beyond millet. That farro and kale salad? It’s been in your dinner party rotation for at least two years. But when was the last time you cooked up a pot of whole berry spelt?

Eat Whole Grains For A Long Life, New Study Says

If you’re going to up your grain intake, make sure to choose whole ones, like steel cut oats, quinoa, or even whole grain bread, over refined ones like cereal flakes or white bread. In other words, the chunkier and wilder the grains, the better – and the more good they may do over the course of a (hopefully long) lifetime.

Eat Whole Grains, Live Longer?

The senior author of the Circulation study, Dr. Qi Sun, an assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard, cautions that eating whole grains is not a panacea. “You shouldn’t hope that you will cure diseases with whole grain foods,” he said. “You still have to pay attention to other good dietary and behavioral practices.”

Eating Like the Ancients: Heirloom Grains Return

You've heard of heirloom tomatoes. Now meet heirloom flours, ground from grains first domesticated thousands of years ago. Also called "heritage" or "ancient," these grains are now in supermarket breads, health-food store pasta and cookies. They are billed as exceptionally nutritious and, in some cases, safe for people who can't tolerate gluten.

Eating Whole Grains Helps You Live Longer, Harvard Study Finds

Fiber-rich whole grains, such as whole wheat, oats and brown rice, help improve blood cholesterol levels and lower the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes, the study noted. Dietary fiber can also make you feel full longer, so you may eat fewer calories and skirt the risk of obesity.

Farro And Wheatberries Offer Delicious Health (And Memory) Benefits

Farro and wheatberries, it turns out, are very close kin. They're each the grain of the wheat plant, which has a rough husk and, inside it, what can be imagined like an egg: a shell, called the "bran," an "endosperm," playing an egg white-like role, and within the endosperm, a yolk-like "germ" —literally, wheat germ. Farro and wheatberries are each the whole, three-part grain, just from different types of wheat plants. Farro comes from wheat varieties grown in warmer climates, while wheatberries come from colder-weather wheat.

Going With Whole Grains

Enter whole grains, which haven't had their bran and germ removed by milling and thus are considered a better source of fiber and other nutrients such as B vitamins, vitamin E, selenium, potassium, magnesium, iron and fiber, as well as other valuable antioxidants, than refined grains. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel (the bran, germ and endosperm) and include brown rice, buckwheat, farro, millet, oatmeal, whole-wheat flour and whole cornmeal, among others.

Is Teff the New Super Grain?

Teff has long been a dietary staple for Ethiopia’s legendary distance runners, like the Olympic gold medalist and world record holder Haile Gebrselassie, who called teff a secret to the success of Ethiopian runners. But now teff is becoming a go-to grain for a growing number of Americans.

Quinoa isn’t the only ancient crop falling prey to Western gluten-free appetites

Waiting in line behind the quinoa craze are several other ancient grains that could become the next “it” foodstuff. But that also means those crops could be rocked by skyrocketing demand from health nuts in Western countries.

Super Grains Explained: From Amaranth to Sorghum, What’s the New Quinoa?

You’ve been hearing smatterings about these “trendy” ancient grains for awhile now—so you decide to see what all of the fuss is about. But when you get to Trader Joe’s and see the real estate they’ve managed to secure, the feeling that comes over you is nothing short of grain-induced panic.

Tapping an Ancient Grain for a Modern Meal

I recommend pasta made from farro, an ancient (as in millenniums) grain at the forefront of the history of wheat. Though similar to modern wheat, farro is higher in protein and other nutrients and is sometimes tolerated by diners with wheat allergies.

The Scoop on Whole Grains

Botanically, whole grains – the cereal grains – are the edible seeds of plants belonging to the grass family (Poaceae).The most important cereal grains in the world – wheat, corn and rice – are grasses. Others include barley, rye, oats, millet and triticale. However, from the culinary and nutritional point of view there are other foods grouped with whole grains that are not grasses, including amaranth (amaranth family, Amaranthaceae), buckwheat (buckwheat family, Polygonaceae) and quinoa (goosefoot family, Chenopodiaceae).

The whole grain goodness of modern and ancient grains

Unlike modern grains such as wheat, corn, and rice, ancient grains have never been processed through hybridization or genetic modification; they’re grown just as they were a thousand years ago. They have exotic-sounding names like teff, einkorn, emmer, amaranth, millet, quinoa, black rice, black barley, and spelt. And they pack a nutritional wallop.

The whole truth about whole grains

Many people are puzzled about grains (think rice, breads, and cereals), especially with the conflicting media reports about their pros and cons. But the truth of the matter is, not all grains are created equal: It is important to choose the right ones. Whole grains offer various health benefits, while refined grains are stripped of valuable bran and germ, along with key nutrients such as B vitamins, iron, and fibre.

Whole Grains: Good for the Planet and Good for You

These days, issues of climate change and global population growth are at the forefront of most discussions about food policy and agriculture, and many consumers are striving to eat more plant-based diets in an effort to make food choices that are healthy for themselves and their planet. When it comes to plant-based eating though, whole grains, which have been a mainstay of traditional diets around the globe for millennia, are sometimes forgotten or overlooked.

Whole-Grain Foods Not Always Healthful

Often synonymous with good health, whole grains may lack heart-healthy fiber—in fact, some processed forms increase cardiovascular risks.

Why do Americans love ancient grains?

Would you like to taste the health-giving grain found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun? Or feast on the unprocessed kernels said to have been stored on the ark by Noah? Or how about a vodka made from traditionally farmed Bolivian quinoa? If any of this whets your appetite, you are not alone.

“Healthy” whole grains: What the evidence really shows

Do whole grains live up to their reputation as a superfood? Let’s take a closer look at the scientific evidence behind the claims made about their benefits. Then you can decide whether or not you need a daily dose of grains in your diet.

Resources

8 Whole Grains You’re Probably Not Eating

You’ve probably had oatmeal for breakfast, and if you haven’t yet tried quinoa I bet you’ve heard of it, or have seen it on a menu or social media recipe (it’s all over Pinterest!). But there are many other whole grains you may not be familiar with, and incorporating them into your food repertoire is well worth the learning curve.

Whole Grain Goodness

Welcome to Whole Grain Goodness, which is an independent, not-for-profit campaign. Here you’ll find everything you need to know about whole grains, including how they’re beneficial to your health and delicious recipe ideas.

Whole Grains Council

The Whole Grains Council is a nonprofit consumer advocacy group working to increase consumption of whole grains for better health.