Who Benefits from Eating Whole Grains? The Dietitian's Opinion

Find out how much you're getting in your diet, and how to make sure you're getting enough.

Wheat is difficult to tell whether the food you buy is actually whole grain unless you eat it straight from the field. Additionally, what exactly is a whole grain? The labels on packaged foods can make it even more confusing, but not all terms are equivalent to "whole grain". In this article, we break down what you need to know about nutritional supplements. (Read more on whole-grain cooking in our Whole Grain Cooking Guide.)

How Do Whole Grains Work?

Grain starts out whole. In addition to an inedible shell, the kernel or seed of the plant is composed of three parts: the bran, germ, and endosperm. The germ and bran contain fiber, antioxidants, B vitamins, protein, and healthy fats, as well as minerals including iron and folate. The starchy carbohydrates in the endosperm, the "meat" of the grain, provide energy for the plant. The nutrient layers in whole grains make them powerful deterrents to chronic disease, and increased consumption has been linked to lower incidences of diabetes, most cancers, and heart disease, as well as an enhanced immunity.

Whole grains, including brown rice, farro, oats, and popcorn, can be eaten plain (yes, popcorn is a whole grain), but are also incorporated into foods like breakfast cereals and bread. Yanni Papanikolaou, M.P.H., president of Nutritional Strategies, a food industry consulting firm, says this is where it gets confusing.

Identifying Whole Grains in Packaged Foods

Kelly Toups, M.L.A., RD, LDN, director of nutrition at Oldways Whole Grains Council, says frozen foods like waffles or crackers are considered "whole" when they contain bran, germ, and endosperm. Compared to unrefined grains, refined grains lack at least one or more of the above components. (Many, like white flour, just contain the starchy endosperm.) "Enriched" grains are usually just refined grains enriched with a few nutrients like iron. Furthermore, refined grains have not been shown to be as healthful as whole grains—in some cases, they may even be harmful.

Using terms like "multigrain," "wheat," or "7 grain" can trick you into thinking a product contains whole grains when many of them don't. Researchers asked more than 1,000 participants in a study published in Public Health Nutrition in 2020 to determine which options of bread, cereal, and crackers had more whole grains. A majority of respondents believed that the most refined products had more whole grains than they actually did.

It is your best bet to find whole grains by looking at the ingredients list rather than some information on the package (like the Whole Grain Stamp). Toups advises consumers to look for products that contain whole grains as one of the top two ingredients, paying special attention to the words "whole" or "whole grain." Be sure to scan what comes after it as well. 

Most ingredients are listed in the order in which they were added, but companies can choose to add less-healthy ingredients, such as sugar, so whole grains will be listed near the top of the list. Are you still unsure? Look at the Nutrition Facts panel and choose a product where the fiber-to-carbohydrate ratio is more than one-to-10 (that is, there is at least one gram of fiber for every ten grams of carbs).

Quick Labels Guide to Reading

Here are a few common terms found on whole-grain labels, as well as what they mean.

 

• This product is made of 100% whole grains. 

• The product is made with some whole grains (but likely not all of them). 

• Whole grain is defined by the FDA as a product that contains at least 51% whole grain by the weight of its ingredients. 

• Whole grain source: The FDA-regulated term refers to products with 15 to 25%  whole grains. 

• There is a golden icon that indicates that a product contains at least 8 grams of whole grains in every serving (1/2 serving of whole grains). The "100%" or "50%" stamps indicate that the product is mostly whole grain. 

• Contains more than one type of grain (but there is no guarantee that they are whole grains). Indicators of future grain types do not apply to stone-ground grains.