Getting Your Whole Grains–Sneaking Them into Your Daily Diet

There are easy ways to sneak healthy whole grains into your diet–and your family’s meals, too. First, it’s important to know exactly what those grains are and which foods contain them.

Whole, refined, and enriched grains are the three types of grains available to consumers. The whole is the healthiest. They are unrefined grains that haven’t had their bran and germ removed via the process of milling. Whole grains excellent sources of fiber and also contain nutrients like selenium, potassium, and magnesium. Grains may be separate foods all by themselves, like popcorn or brown rice, or ingredients in other foods like whole wheat in bread or buckwheat in muffins.

How Grains are Helpful and Healthy?

So how can you ensure that your family gets their daily recommended requirements of these healthy whole grains? Adults should eat 3 to 5 servings per day and children should eat 2 to 3 servings per day to ensure optimal health.

If you serve whole-grain cereal and whole-grain toast or English muffins at breakfast, there are two of the three recommended servings of whole grains per day. That’s one of the easiest ways to get in two hearty servings every day. Lunch provides the opportunity for even more, provided you eat a sandwich made with two slices of whole-grain bread. That’s just fine–but what about those people who only like or refuse to eat anything besides white bread?

Supplement even more grains at dinner by serving brown rice. Snacking on a cup of popcorn–made from kernels and popped in canola oil–is an excellent way of getting in at least one or two more servings.

It’s important to switch up the way you serve these whole grains or those who are eating them every day will get bored with their meal plans. This is where you must become creative and mix some whole grains into other foods. Use whole wheat flour to make pancakes. Mix steel-cut oats into your meatloaf. Make homemade croutons with whole grain bread and float them in your soup.

A combination of facts and menu planning will have you feeding both yourself and your family the daily recommended number of whole grains each day, and in doing so you will be affording all of yourself a wealth of good health.