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Including wholegrain foods in your diet has been linked to a range of health benefits, but to enjoy these you need to know which wholegrain foods to choose.
Cereal-based foods often get a bad rap in terms of being a healthy food choice; and that's fair enough if you're choosing white bread, pastry, cakes, salty crackers or some breakfast cereals.
But there are plenty of health benefits to be gained from including wholegrains in your diet, with grain foods being a core component of many healthy traditional dietary patterns around the world.
Yet most Australians eat fewer wholegrain foods than the amounts recommended for good health and many of us don't understand the health benefits wholegrains have to offer.
Grains are the edible seeds of plants that belong to the cereal grass family. In terms of nutrients, wholegrains contain carbohydrates, protein, fibre, thiamine, folate and iodine. They also contribute significant amounts of magnesium, zinc, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin E3.
Each individual grain has three parts:
Not surprisingly, wholegrain foods include all three parts of the grain.
When grains are processed or refined, the germ and bran are often removed leaving only the endosperm. A good proportion of the nutrients contained in grains are found in the bran and germ, which is why wholegrains contain more nutrients than refined grains.
Australians most commonly eat wheat, rice and oats and foods made from these, such as bread, pasta, breakfast cereals and cous cous. But there are plenty of other grains to choose from including rye, corn, triticale, millet and quinoa, as well as ancient forms of wheat, such as spelt and kamut.
Cooking with wholegrains is one way to include them in your diet, but they are also included in other foods such as wholemeal, wholegrain or seedy breads; wholegrain breakfast cereals; wholegrain crispbreads or crackers; puffed wholegrains; and popcorn.
We're encouraged to eat foods made from refined grains only occasionally, as they contain fewer nutrients and less fibre, and can also be high in salt, sugar and saturated fats. Foods made from refined grains include those made from white flour such as white bread, crackers, pasta, breakfast cereals, cakes, and biscuits. Common foods made from white rice include rice crackers, rice cakes, and rice bubbles.
The most recent Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend we 'enjoy grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibre varieties'.
This recommendation is based on scientific evidence that shows eating wholegrain foods, is associated with lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and colon cancer and lower rates of weight gain over time.
Heart disease: when it comes to lowering your risk of heart disease, the best grains to choose are oats and barley as these are the highest in soluble fibre and contain a component called beta-glucan, which has consistently been shown to lower blood cholesterol levels.
Type 2 diabetes: eating around three serves of wholegrain foods daily is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Weight control: despite the fact that many women tend to avoid grains because of concerns that these foods will contribute to weight gain, studies have found eating three to five serves of wholegrains a day reduces weight gain.
Overall, the research shows you get the greatest health benefits if you have three to five serves every day.
The healthiest grains are those that have undergone minimal processing and have few ingredients added.
But it's not just processing that affects a grain's nutritional value, different types of grains vary in their nutritional composition with some being higher in fibre, protein, vitamins or minerals than others. For example, wheat is naturally higher in selenium than other common grains while rye is very high in fibre and potassium and quinoa is high in vitamin E and folate.
For example, 1/2 cup wholemeal pasta provides 4.2g fibre, compared to 1/2 cup cooked white rice providing 0.5g fibre. Similarly, 1 slice wholegrain bread contains three times the amount of niacin compared to 1/2 cup cooked oats, but oats are higher in soluble fibre.
The bottom line is, you'll get the best nutritional benefits from grains if you eat a wide variety.
The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating outlines what is considered one serve of grains. For example:
To meet daily nutritional needs, the following number of serves of grain foods for people of various ages and gender are recommended. Note these are the minimum recommendations and people who are more active or taller will need to eat more.
| Gender | Age | Number of serves of grain foods daily |
| Boys | 2-8 years | 4 |
| 9-11 years | 5 | |
| 12-13 years | 6 | |
| 14-18 years | 7 | |
| Girls | 2-11 years | 4 |
| 12-13 years | 5 | |
| 14-18 years | 7 | |
| Pregnant | 8 | |
| Breastfeeding | 9 | |
| Women | 19-50 years | 6 |
| 51-70 years | 4 | |
| 70+ years | 3 | |
| Men | 19-70 years | 6 |
| 70+ years | 4 1/2 |
As an example, meeting a target of 6 serves of grain based foods daily could be made up as follows:
Breakfast:
1 cup cooked porridge
Lunch:
2 slices wholegrain bread
Afternoon:
3 wholegrain crispbreads
Dinner:
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
And if the nutritional benefits aren't enough to convince you to choose wholegrains, then you might be motivated by the cheaper price of many less process cereal foods.
For example, wholegrain oats cost as little as 16 cents per 100g while a flavoured, branded variety will cost nearly ten times as much at $1.56/100g. Wholemeal pasta is around 45 cents/100g and brown rice 34cents/100g while pre-prepared rice and pasta side dishes increase to $2.22/100g.
Published 28/06/2013
