Dear Guy-titian,
I am stumped over something regarding whole grains and fiber. Wholegraincouncil.org has new labels on food and my box of Kashi says one serving has almost the entire dosage of 48g recommended daily for whole grains. I would be “done”.
The amount of fiber is maybe 6g. (don’t quote me). So I would need to include more fiber for the day.
I know all whole grains are not created equal, with varying amounts of fiber per whole grain, but I am confused when trying to decide which gauge I should use. I read the recent Journal article that whole grain is more significant in reducing colon ca vs. simple fiber intake.
Help!
Mary
Dear Mary:
I can appreciate your confusion about whole grains and fiber. For years, Dietitians like myself ingrained (pun intended) the importance of looking at how much fiber per serving a product contained. But we now know that the health benefit of whole grains goes way beyond its fiber content.
So to help the consumer identify which foods are a good or excellent source of whole grains, the Whole Grains Council "stamps" now bear the amount of whole grains (measured in grams) per serving. To meet the “good source” stamp, the product must contain 8 grams of whole grain per serving. To meet the “excellent source” stamp criteria, a product must contain at least 16 grams of whole grain per serving. I know of one Kashi product that supplies 41 grams per serving – Summer Berry Granola and its quite yummy. So you are right, if you ate that, you would pretty much meet your needs in one bowlful!
To add more confusion, there is also a recommendation to get in 25-35 grams of fiber per day. So though your bowl of Kashi meets most of your whole grain servings, you still need to come up with at least 19 more grams of fiber. Eating more whole grains, fruits and veggies can easily help you achieve that goal, especially if one of your veggies is beans!
Your point about fiber and colon cancer illustrates why it is smarter to concentrate on how much whole grain you are getting in than just worrying about the fiber number alone. There is something else in whole grain that may play a role in fighting colon cancer. It may have to do with the starchy component of whole grains that provide something called resistant starch (RS). RS causes a short chain fat called Butyrate to increase which seems to have protective effects against colon cancer.
Hope that helps!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
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It is well known that observational studies like the one you cite on colon cancer to support your whole grain story, are not controlled cause-effect trials, but associations studies. In these studies there are many possible reasons for the results, for example, people that choose to consume whole grains may have better eating habits, diets, lifestyles or exercise more. The study also indicates that it is fiber from whole grains versus fiber from other sources that may have brought about the differences. Even you mention that Resistant Starch (RS) may be a major factor driving the benefit, RS is a fiber, thus you are actually supporting fiber as a beneficial factor. Why do we need to consumer reconstituted whole grains with the included white flour in them representing about 80% of wholegrain (did you know that)? We already know that the active components in wholegrain are in the fiber-rich bran mainly and in the germ, these are the ones we need to focus on and ditch the extra white flour in whole grain, we do not need it, we already consume plenty of it.
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