September 19, 2010

There’s a hole in my Whole Grain numbers

Not a bad day overall. We all came in on or under budget, ringing up a family total of $27.60 for the day. The centrally planned lunches are really helping out numbers but we still have to address the shortfall in the whole grain and milk categories.

ED
Breakfast
Go Lean Crunch with vanilla yogurt

Lunch
Turkey and Cheddar on 1/2 Wheat English muffin
Carrots & Celery
Dried plums

Dinner
Bowtie Pasta with Chicken Meatballs and Chard in Olive Oil
Salad with tomato and avocado with Balsamic dressing

Total Daily Expenditure: $8.16


JAMIE
Breakfast
Smashed avocado on Wheat Toast with tomato

Lunch
Turkey and Swiss on ½ a Bagel
Carrots & Cherry Tomato
Dried plums
Hard-boiled egg

Dinner
Bowtie Pasta with Chicken Meatballs and Chard in Olive Oil
Salad with tomato and avocado with Balsamic dressing

Total Daily Expenditure: $10.00


CELIA
Breakfast
Go Lean Crunch with Milk
Banana

Lunch
Turkey and Swiss on ½ a Bagel
Carrots & Cherry Tomato
Dried plums
2 hard-boiled eggs

Dinner
Bowtie Pasta with Chicken Meatballs and Chard in Olive Oil
Salad with tomato and avocado with Balsamic dressing

Total Daily Expenditure: $9.45

Lessons Learned and Observations
I’m frustrated by whole grains – really, who isn’t? According to the food powers that be, we should have 3 servings or roughly 84 grams of whole grains each day. I'm game, but how do I know how many grams of whole grains are in my oatmeal, wheat bread or quinoa?  Does 100% wheat mean it's whole grain? What does multigrain mean? Whole wheat sounds promising but there is nothing that qanitifes its "wholeness" on the package.
This is where The Whole Grains Council comes in. In the pursuit of getting Americans to consume more whole grains, they are providing resources to help us to know a whole grain when we see one. You’ll occasionally find a special packaging symbol on products telling you exactly how many grams of whole grain are in each serving. Many marketing savvy producers include this information under the banner of “Heart Healthy” food. But, by no means is this commonly applied to all whole grain offerings.
The Whole Grain Council lords over all whole grains or foods made from them contain all the essential parts and naturally-occurring nutrients of the entire grain seed. If the grain has been processed (e.g., cracked, crushed, rolled, extruded, and/or cooked), the food product should deliver approximately the same rich balance of nutrients that are found in the original grain seed.
The obvious suspects are Corn, including whole cornmeal and popcorn; Oats, including oatmeal; barley; Rice, both brown rice and colored rice; Wheat, and Wild rice. But there is a much more exotic world of whole grains into which few dare to travel: Amaranth, Buckwheat, Millet, Quinoa, Rye, Sorghum (also called milo), Teff, and Triticale.  Not to mention the more obscure “other cereal grasses from the Poaceae (or Gramineous) family” such as canary seed, Job's tears, Montina, Timothy, fonio, etc. which also qualify as whole grains when consumed with all of their bran, germ and endosperm.
But I digress… My point was that you are not likely to find the quantity of whole grain clearly demarked on your canary see – endosperm or not.
Due to this snag in my data collection, I altered my original method which tried to quantify whole grains in grams per day to reflect simple servings per day. Realistically, this is much more practical. If you eat a bowl of oatmeal or Go Lean Crunch (our favorite) cereal – point for you! A turkey sandwich on whole wheat for lunch – 2 points! Throw in whole wheat pasta or brown rice for dinner and you have met the mark.
Still, in my whole grain naiveté, I did a poor job of purchasing for this particular requirement. I bought too many plain Jane pastas (I’m sure the Pasta Council would disagree) and even some egregious white bread. I’ve noted the error of my ways and will stick to the all things consumed in bran, germ or endosperm from now on.

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