Grains

How to Cook Farro (and Literally Every Other Grain) Perfectly, Every Time

Follow these steps to perfectly cook any grain, from farro and millet to wild rice and quinoa.

The Whole Truth About Whole Grains and Your Health

Somehow, we became so nutritionally confused that we don’t recognize whole grains as the foundation of the human diet from the beginning of time.

Diets like Paleo and Whole30 are getting grains all wrong

Far from the foodstuff of mindless drones, grains are the building blocks of civilization.

Global malnutrition: why cereal grains could provide an answer

Low-carb diets have become increasingly popular in the UK, US, and Europe in recent years, with no shortage of information being spread online about the harms of carbohydrates for your health. Indeed, some carbs do worsen some digestive disorders in some people, and eating too many definitely can contribute to poorer health and obesity – including diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But for billions of people around the world, staple cereal grains like wheat, maize, barley and rice provide the most accessible form of energy, critical to staving off hunger. These cereals have been major foodstuffs for millennia. And for much of the world’s population, they make up over 50% of people’s diets.

Multigrain, wholegrain, wholemeal: what’s the difference and which bread is best?

Wholemeal, wholegrain, multigrain, sourdough, rye, white, high fibre white, low GI, low FODMAP, gluten free. With so many choices of bread available, how are we to know which is best for our health?

Nearly all Americans fail to eat enough of this actual superfood

While we obsess about carbs and protein, we’ve ignored fiber — at our peril.

Beyond quinoa: five European grains to add to a healthy diet

While we're obsessed with trendy grains and life-changing superfoods from abroad, we often forget to look closer to home

Radical Eating

What will be the next quinoa? That’s up to you. The typical Western diet—heavy on meat, starch, and sweets—is taking over the world. From Mexico to China, changes in what people eat are driving up rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

Thoroughly Modern Millet

How to eat whole grains.

Try the hot trend in whole grains

Ancient grains have become the darlings of the culinary world, and they're healthy, too.

Whole-Grain Foods Not Always Healthful

Often synonymous with good health, whole grains may lack heart-healthy fiber—in fact, some processed forms increase cardiovascular risks.

America has corn and Asia has rice. It’s time Australia had a native staple food

Most countries have a staple food: native, fast-growing and easy-to-store plants high in carbohydrates. In Africa, it’s sorghum. In Asia, rice. In the Americas, corn and potato. Around the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East and Europe, it’s wheat and barley. Australia is an exception – we do not have a staple food.

Ancient grains are misnamed and their health benefits are unconfirmed

KHORASAN, teff, emmer and amaranth. No, these aren’t planets in the next Star Wars movie, but some of the growing range of wheat alternatives that are increasingly filling supermarket shelves (and “wellness guru” Instagram feeds) everywhere. Said to be untouched by modern plant breeders, who have apparently rendered wheat an unhealthy option, these “ancient grains” can supposedly transform your health. But what exactly are these foods, and are they as beneficial as claimed? Here’s the first thing: ancient grains are often anything but.

Beyond Quinoa: The New Ancient Grains

You’ve cooked your way through quinoa of every color, dabbled in amaranth and moved beyond millet. That farro and kale salad? It’s been in your dinner party rotation for at least two years. But when was the last time you cooked up a pot of whole berry spelt?

Eat Whole Grains For A Long Life, New Study Says

If you’re going to up your grain intake, make sure to choose whole ones, like steel cut oats, quinoa, or even whole grain bread, over refined ones like cereal flakes or white bread. In other words, the chunkier and wilder the grains, the better – and the more good they may do over the course of a (hopefully long) lifetime.

Eat Whole Grains, Live Longer?

The senior author of the Circulation study, Dr. Qi Sun, an assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard, cautions that eating whole grains is not a panacea. “You shouldn’t hope that you will cure diseases with whole grain foods,” he said. “You still have to pay attention to other good dietary and behavioral practices.”

Eating Like the Ancients: Heirloom Grains Return

You've heard of heirloom tomatoes. Now meet heirloom flours, ground from grains first domesticated thousands of years ago. Also called "heritage" or "ancient," these grains are now in supermarket breads, health-food store pasta and cookies. They are billed as exceptionally nutritious and, in some cases, safe for people who can't tolerate gluten.

Eating Whole Grains Helps You Live Longer, Harvard Study Finds

Fiber-rich whole grains, such as whole wheat, oats and brown rice, help improve blood cholesterol levels and lower the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes, the study noted. Dietary fiber can also make you feel full longer, so you may eat fewer calories and skirt the risk of obesity.

Farro And Wheatberries Offer Delicious Health (And Memory) Benefits

Farro and wheatberries, it turns out, are very close kin. They're each the grain of the wheat plant, which has a rough husk and, inside it, what can be imagined like an egg: a shell, called the "bran," an "endosperm," playing an egg white-like role, and within the endosperm, a yolk-like "germ" —literally, wheat germ. Farro and wheatberries are each the whole, three-part grain, just from different types of wheat plants. Farro comes from wheat varieties grown in warmer climates, while wheatberries come from colder-weather wheat.

Going With Whole Grains

Enter whole grains, which haven't had their bran and germ removed by milling and thus are considered a better source of fiber and other nutrients such as B vitamins, vitamin E, selenium, potassium, magnesium, iron and fiber, as well as other valuable antioxidants, than refined grains. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel (the bran, germ and endosperm) and include brown rice, buckwheat, farro, millet, oatmeal, whole-wheat flour and whole cornmeal, among others.

Grains: To Eat Or Not To Eat?

If you listen to the ideology of some mainstream diets out there, it would appear that grains are the latest diet villain, following in the footsteps of fats (healthy ones) and even fruits (because of their natural sugar).

Is a No-Grain Diet Healthy?

Around the world, it’s become common for people to stop eating certain foods, often because they believe the change will improve their health...But there are risks when people cut entire categories of food without making sure they’re getting all the essential nutrients they need.

Is Teff the New Super Grain?

Teff has long been a dietary staple for Ethiopia’s legendary distance runners, like the Olympic gold medalist and world record holder Haile Gebrselassie, who called teff a secret to the success of Ethiopian runners. But now teff is becoming a go-to grain for a growing number of Americans.

Less Nutritious Grains May Be In Our Future

In the future, Earth's atmosphere is likely to include a whole lot more carbon dioxide. And many have been puzzling over what that may mean for the future of food crops. Now, scientists are reporting that some of the world's most important crops contain fewer crucial nutrients when they grow in such an environment.

Quinoa isn’t the only ancient crop falling prey to Western gluten-free appetites

Waiting in line behind the quinoa craze are several other ancient grains that could become the next “it” foodstuff. But that also means those crops could be rocked by skyrocketing demand from health nuts in Western countries.

Super Grains Explained: From Amaranth to Sorghum, What’s the New Quinoa?

You’ve been hearing smatterings about these “trendy” ancient grains for awhile now—so you decide to see what all of the fuss is about. But when you get to Trader Joe’s and see the real estate they’ve managed to secure, the feeling that comes over you is nothing short of grain-induced panic.

Tapping an Ancient Grain for a Modern Meal

I recommend pasta made from farro, an ancient (as in millenniums) grain at the forefront of the history of wheat. Though similar to modern wheat, farro is higher in protein and other nutrients and is sometimes tolerated by diners with wheat allergies.

The Healthiest People In The World Eat A Lot Of Carbs

Japanese people are, as a whole, very healthy: They have the second-highest life expectancies compared to any other country in the world (the U.S. comes in at number 43) and have an obesity rate of just 3.5 percent, which is one-tenth of America’s 35 percent obesity rate. The reason for Japan’s superior health? Their grain-heavy, high-carb diet.

The whole grain goodness of modern and ancient grains

Unlike modern grains such as wheat, corn, and rice, ancient grains have never been processed through hybridization or genetic modification; they’re grown just as they were a thousand years ago. They have exotic-sounding names like teff, einkorn, emmer, amaranth, millet, quinoa, black rice, black barley, and spelt. And they pack a nutritional wallop.

What Grain Is Doing To Your Brain

It's tempting to call David Perlmutter's dietary advice radical. The neurologist and president of the Perlmutter Health Center in Naples, Fla., believes all carbs, including highly touted whole grains, are devastating to our brains. He claims we must make major changes in our eating habits as a society to ward off terrifying increases in Alzheimer's disease and dementia rates.

Whole Grains: Good for the Planet and Good for You

These days, issues of climate change and global population growth are at the forefront of most discussions about food policy and agriculture, and many consumers are striving to eat more plant-based diets in an effort to make food choices that are healthy for themselves and their planet. When it comes to plant-based eating though, whole grains, which have been a mainstay of traditional diets around the globe for millennia, are sometimes forgotten or overlooked.

Whole-Grain Foods Not Always Healthful

Often synonymous with good health, whole grains may lack heart-healthy fiber—in fact, some processed forms increase cardiovascular risks.

Why do Americans love ancient grains?

Would you like to taste the health-giving grain found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun? Or feast on the unprocessed kernels said to have been stored on the ark by Noah? Or how about a vodka made from traditionally farmed Bolivian quinoa? If any of this whets your appetite, you are not alone.

Why Grains Are Unhealthy

Apart from maintaining social conventions in certain situations and obtaining cheap sugar calories, there is absolutely no reason to eat grains. Believe me — I’ve searched far and wide and asked everyone I can for just one good reason to eat cereal grains, but no one can do it. They may have answers, but they just aren’t good enough. For fun, though, let’s see take a look at some of the assertions...

Year One of 'Grain Free' Me, a Backwards Glance...

Did going grain free heal me? I can't say, because I was wolfing down every healing superfood I knew about. But it seemed like the grain free played a big part. When you take in so many good nutrients, and take out other things, it's hard to isolate just one.

The Real Problem With Grains

Grains are a controversial food in modern society, but the real problem with grains may not be what you think! On the one hand, you have experts who claim that grains are a modern addition to the food supply and have only been consumed for the last 10,000 years or so but we aren’t meant to eat them. Others claim that grains are the foundation of our food supply and have been for thousands of years. So, Who is right?

8 Whole Grains You’re Probably Not Eating

You’ve probably had oatmeal for breakfast, and if you haven’t yet tried quinoa I bet you’ve heard of it, or have seen it on a menu or social media recipe (it’s all over Pinterest!). But there are many other whole grains you may not be familiar with, and incorporating them into your food repertoire is well worth the learning curve.

Against all Grain

Danielle Walker is the author and photographer of the New York Times Best Selling cookbook Against all Grain. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when she was 22 years old, Danielle realized that she needed to make dietary changes to end her suffering. She removed grains, lactose, and legumes from her diet, and started her blog to help others suffering from similar ailments continue to enjoy food.

Whole Grain Goodness

Welcome to Whole Grain Goodness, which is an independent, not-for-profit campaign. Here you’ll find everything you need to know about whole grains, including how they’re beneficial to your health and delicious recipe ideas.

Whole Grains Council

The Whole Grains Council is a nonprofit consumer advocacy group working to increase consumption of whole grains for better health.