The Truth About Whole Grains
•Posted on November 09 2012

Do Whole Grains Make Us Healthier?
Of course, we hear a lot about the benefits of whole grains all year long—and not just from the people who sell them to us. Getting people to eat more whole grains is also a major pillar of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. We’re told that people who eat more whole grains are healthier—they have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and many other diseases. But this isn’tquite true.
People who eat whole grain products—such as whole wheat bread—instead ofrefined grain products—such as white bread—do appear to be healthier. But most of the benefit comes from the fact that they have reduced their consumption of refined grains. When people simply eat more whole grains without eating less refined grains, they don’t get the same benefits.
The Whole Truth About Whole Grains
What is Glycemic Load?
“Glycemic Load” refers to how a given food affects your blood sugar level. It’s related to the glycemic index, but I find glycemic load more useful because it also takes into account how much of that food you eat—which, as you’ll see in a moment, makes a really big difference. The glycemic load of a small plate of regular (white) pasta as about 23, which is considered high. The glycemic load of a small plate of whole wheat pasta is only 15, which is moderate. A large plate of whole wheat pasta, however, has a glycemic load of 30, or very high. Here’s the point that I want to make: In terms of your blood sugar, a small plate of white pasta is better than a large plate of whole wheat pasta. Quick and Dirty Tip: Choosing a whole grain option does not give you license to have a larger helping. It’s important to watch portion size with all grain-based foods—even whole grain foods.What is Nutrient Density?
“Nutrient density” refers to how much nutrition a food provides for the calories. If one food provides the same nutritional value as another but has only half the calories, we say it is twice as nutrient-dense. For all the talk about the nutritional value of whole grains, you’d probably think that they are much more nutrient dense than refined grains—but they’re really not. On a scale of 0 to 5, with 5 representing the most nutrition for the calories and 0 representing the least, most refined grain products, such as white bread, pasta, and rice, are in the 2.5 to 2.8 range. The whole grain alternatives range from 2.9 to 3.3 or so—a bit better. Most vegetables, on the other hand, are way up in the 4.5 to 5.0 range. Quick and Dirty Tip: Replacing a refined grain with a whole grain alternative offers a slight nutritional upgrade but nowhere near as big an upgrade as replacing it with an extra serving of vegetables. See also: Are Grains Really Necessary to a Healthy Diet?The Bottom Line on Whole Grains
Cutting down on refined grains and replacing them with whole grains—in moderation—or other nutritious foods like vegetables, is a good way to improve your diet. But eating large quantities of grain-based foods—even when they’re whole grains—is not necessarily the path to better health. [button size=medium style=less_round color=red align=none url=http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/the-truth-about-whole-grains.aspx]Nutrition Diva WebSite[/button]More Posts
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