How you can add more whole grains and fibre to your meals
Consider these tips to add more whole grains and fibre to your everyday meals and snacks:
• Switch to whole grain breads for toast and sandwiches.
• If you're baking cookies, muffins or a cakes, substitute half of the white flour you'd normally add with whole-wheat flour.
• Add a half cup of wild rice, brown rice, sorghum or barley to your favourite canned or homemade soup.
• For an afternoon snack, try an apple, peach or plum – they're loaded with fibre.
• Don't forget your favourite Lean Cuisine entrées made with 100% whole grains.
What to look for when you're shopping for whole grains
Read the labels on the breads, cereals, and pasta you buy. Look for the word "whole" before "wheat"; it should be listed as the first ingredient. On their own, oats are always whole, no matter whether they're old-fashioned, instant, fine-cut, or coarse-cut. Oatmeal bread, however, is another matter because its first ingredient is generally refined wheat flour, with oats so far down the list that there aren't enough of them to supply a meaningful amount of bran or fibre.
Brown and wild rice are whole grains; white rice is refined. Don't be fooled by words like enriched, unbleached, bromated, stone-ground, granulated, 100% wheat, rye, pumpernickel, multi-grain, 7-grain, semolina, or organic. These products may contain little or no whole grains. To know whether the product you buy contains whole grain, read the label. If the first ingredient is whole-wheat flour, oats, brown rice, or whole-rye flour, you're getting the whole grains, fibre and nutrition you need.
Other kinds of whole grains to try:
• Barley is a rich source of antioxidants and cholesterol-lowering soluble fibre. One cup of cooked barley has 5.9 grams of fibre.
• Bulgur is made of wheat kernels that have been steamed, dried and crushed and provides vitamin E and other antioxidant compounds, as well as containing twice as much fibre as an equal portion of oatmeal.
• Whole-wheat couscous and pasta have up to 3-1/2 times more fibre than white (refined) varieties.
• Brown rice has ten times more fibre than white rice and is loaded with complex carbohydrates and B vitamins.
• Quinoa is a chewy, nutty-tasting grain that is packed with protein, lysine (an amino acid that helps tissues grow and repair themselves) and blood-building iron. Because it is so rich in nutrients, quinoa is often called the “supergrain” of the future.
Sources:
UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, Jan-99
Healthyideas.com/cooking/makeover, Sep-28-98
