Tips & Tricks to Get Your Family to Eat More Whole Grains

Overview

If your kids are like mine, they won’t eat brown rice and getting them to eat whole grain bread is almost impossible. There are other forms of whole grains that kids find appealing. Adding whole grains to your family’s diet is an important way to improve their health. Studies have shown that diets high in whole grains help prevent cancer and other diseases. This is why it is more important than ever to get your family to eat more whole grains.

Whole Grains Your Family Might Enjoy

Breads

Let’s start with bread. All breads, whole grain or not, have a lot of calories. White bread is so awful for your health. Fresh baked bread, on the other hand, tastes wonderful and it is void of trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. Baking bread has become really easy. I fell in love with the artisan breads that you can make in five minutes a day. In his article Five Minutes A Day For Fresh Bread, Jeff Hertzberg and Joe Francois show how easy it is for anyone to have fresh baked bread anytime they want it. We use this recipe and others in my home. It is saving us tons of money and the kids are eating healthier. It is unlikely that sandwiches and toast will become a thing of the past. Make sure that the bread calories they are eating are healthy calories.

Rice

White rice has very little nutritional value. Some people find that brown rice has a bitter aftertaste. Here are some tips to getting better quality rice into your family. Cook brown rice in chicken stock and add chopped fresh scallions just prior to serving. This removes the bitter aftertaste of brown rice. After a while, brown rice gets boring. Try mixing different types of rice. Bhutanese red rice has a much better flavor than brown rice does. It is just as nutritional, if not more nutritional, than brown rice. Lotus Foods carries good quality Bhutanese red rice. The flavor is slightly sweet and kids seem to like it better than brown rice.

Forbidden Black Rice is another good rice to try. This can be mixed into soups or stews. Mixing it with other grains is advised, having a serving of shiny purple-black rice on the plate is striking but not kid friendly. Forbidden Black Rice is tasty. It is definitely one to try instead of brown rice.

More Healthy Grains

There are other grains that you family may love. Polenta, made with whole grain corn is wonderful. Don’t bother buying the expensive polenta in a roll at the supermarket. A box of quick cooking organic polenta is fast and easy to make, as well as healthy. Polenta can be served soft, almost like grits or it can be allowed to set up and then pan fry it (using cooking spray or a dry pan). When allowed to set up and pan fried it tastes a lot like corn bread. Soft served it can replace white mashed potatoes as a side dish. One of our favorite dishes is sausage and peppers with polenta.

Quinoa, pronounced Keen-wah, is another whole grain that your family may love. Sweet and nutty, you cook it similar to the way rice is cooked. The result is a sweet grain that is tasty. Quinoa will pick up any flavors from cooking. I purchase quinoa grains and cook them myself. I find many of the boxed quinoa side dishes to be very salty.

Finally there is millet. Millet can be used in muffins, dessert breads and cookies. Use it just like you would wheat flour. Millet muffins are tasty. Kids love them and they are packed full of vitamins.

Where to Find More Information

If getting your family to eat more whole grains is one of your goals, the book Whole Grains: Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass is a must have. In this book all types of whole grains are discussed. Lorna Sass explains exactly how to cook whole grains, where to get them, and gives you wonderful recipes to try. You can find this book online or in any major book store.

For a quick list of 16 whole grains and ideas on how to include them into your diet, check out this diet and nutrition article.