Refined Grains vs. Whole Grains - What's the Difference?

Have you heard the fuss about whole grains?  They used to be relatively unknown, but in the past couple of years whole grain has really gone mainstream.  Just take a walk down the cereal aisle in the grocery store and look at all the cereal boxes touting their whole grain contents.

Whole grains are better for you, and it's recommended that we should all make half of our grain consumption from whole grains.  At least half!  Whole grains contain more fiber, more vitamins and minerals, and more nutrition overall.

Whole grains contain the bran, germ, and endosperm of the grain, which is the whole thing - thus the term "whole grain".  Refined grains only contain the endosperm, so only one third of the grain is left after processing.  That's not much!

I just taught a nutrition class for 3rd and 4th graders where I introduced the topic of whole grains by giving them a bag of white rice and a bag of brown rice and asking what the difference was between the two.   I got all kinds of wonderful answers, but my favorite was that the grains of brown rice were slightly larger than the grains of white rice.  Ya know - they're right!  What a clever way to demonstrate how much of the grain is removed by processing when we make brown rice into white rice!

Here's a free powerpoint presentation to learn more about whole grains, their benefits, how to recognize them and get more into your diet.