Ultra-Processed Foods & the American Diet

Americans are eating more ultra-processed foods than ever. That’s not a good thing, considering the link between highly processed foods and chronic disease, obesity, and cancer.

  • Highly processed foods account for two-thirds of the calories consumed by American youths aged 2-19. (NIH)
  • Ultra-processed foods account for 57 percent of total calories consumed by American adults. (AJCN)

We have a new poster that addresses this issue head on: Nutrient-Dense vs. Ultra-Processed Food poster. This beautiful poster uses photographs of real food to encourage people to eat more whole foods and minimally processed foods that are nutrient-dense instead of ultra-processed foods.

You can include the idea of nutrient-dense versus ultra-processed foods when you teach about most nutrition education topics. For example:

  1. MyPlate: Emphasize less processed foods for each food group.
  2. Supermarket tours and shopping tips: Explain where in the grocery store you’re most likely to find less processed foods and which aisles are danger zones for ultra-processed foods.
  3. Healthy beverages: We automatically think of sugary sodas, but diet soda is also ultra-processed.
  4. Plant-based eating: Point out that some plant-based foods are highly processed.
  5. Medical nutrition therapy: Help your clients find alternatives to any ultra-processed foods they regularly eat.

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Give Fiber a High-Five

It’s time to give fiber a high-five. How do you do that? Take a look at our new High Five to High Fiber poster and you’ll see.

Kids and adults alike will love this colorful poster that features vibrant photos of real high fiber foods, all within the outline of a hand giving a high-five.

Why a high-five to fiber-rich foods? Consider these five points from the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

  1. Dietary fiber is considered a dietary component of public health concern for the general U.S. population because low intakes are associated with health concerns.
  2. Dietary patterns that do not meet recommended intakes of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains contribute to low intakes of dietary fiber.
  3. More than 90 percent of women and 97 percent of men do not meet recommended intakes for dietary fiber.
  4. Whole grains are consumed below recommended levels for children of all ages.
  5. Fruit and vegetable intake decreases as children get older and by late adolescence (18-21yrs), average fruit and vegetable consumption is about half of the recommended range of intake.

This isn’t good news for Americans, but the High Five to High Fiber poster doesn’t dwell on the negative. It stays positive, with the simple message that all the beautiful fruits, grains, nuts, vegetables, and legumes pictured contain dietary fiber.

As a bonus, the poster is also great for teaching about a plant-based diet.

So let’s all give a high-five to high fiber foods!

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

3 Steps to More Whole Grains

September is Whole Grains Month. The typical American diet is high in refined grains, but most people don’t eat enough whole grains.

Here’s a 3-step approach to eating more whole grains that you can share with your classes, patients, or clients:

  1. Simple Swaps:  Whole wheat bread for white bread; brown rice for white rice; bran flakes for corn flakes. Our Go for the Whole Grain color tearpad shows lots of possible substitutions for refined grains.
  2. Easy Add Ins:  Add oats to your smoothie; use buckwheat flour for a portion of the all-purpose flour in a recipe; top your spinach salad with a spoonful of cooked quinoa. You’ll find these tips and more in our Grains are for Brains PowerPoint set.
  3. Grain Adventures:  Be brave … try a whole grain you’ve never eaten before! Our All About Whole Grains color tearpad shows pictures of grains many folks have probably never seen. Experiment and see what you like.

Other ways to get into the spirit of Whole Grains Month:

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

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Grains: Set the Story Straight

Between low carb diets and the gluten-free craze, grains get a bad rap. Set things straight by teaching the truth about whole grains.

Whether you want to do a deep-dive webinar series, short Facebook or YouTube Live sessions, or a bulletin board display, we have the materials you need in our Whole Grain theme, including:

What to teach? Here are some catchy ideas to get you started:

  1. Grain’s Anatomy: Teach the parts of a grain. Show how processing turns a healthy whole grain into a less-healthy refined grain.
  2. Make Peace with Bread: Explain how whole grain bread can fit into a healthy eating pattern. Discuss reading labels to find 100% whole grain bread and appropriate serving sizes.
  3. Name That Grain: Most people don’t know much about grains beyond wheat, oats, and rice. Show them pictures of less-familiar grains like quinoa, buckwheat, and farro and give tips on how to prepare them.
  4. Start Your Day the Whole Grain Way: Whole grains are a natural breakfast choice. Talk about the difference between instant oats and steel-cut oats, how to prepare overnight oats, and low sugar whole-grain cereal options.

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Be Carb Smart

Americans love to hate carbohydrates. If cutting carbs means avoiding foods like white bread, big bagels, and sugary cereals, go for it. If it means you’re afraid to eat a banana or drink low-fat milk, we need to talk!

It’s our job to teach people two things about carbs. First, that carbs are the body’s main source of energy, so you can’t do without them. And second, that all carbs are not equal when it comes to calories, fiber, and important nutrients. Our Be Carb Smart PowerPoint, poster, and color handout can help you set the record straight.

Here are some teaching tips to help people Be Carb Smart:

  1. Fiber is key. A high fiber diet helps reduce your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer. Fiber also makes you feel full (so you’ll eat less), and helps control blood sugar and cholesterol. Guess which foods provide fiber? Carbs! Be smart – don’t cut out carbs that provide healthy fiber.
  2. Some carbs are high in calories, low in fiber, and low in nutrients. We call these calorie-dense carbs. Examples are French fries, cookies, crackers, and pretzels. These are the carbs you want to cut.
  3. Some carbs are lower in calories, higher in fiber, and high in nutrients. We call these calorie-light carbs. Examples are vegetables, fruits, hot cereals, brown rice, and beans. (Low-fat and skim milk count, too, although they don’t provide fiber.) These are the carbs you want to include in your diet.
  4. MyPlate makes it easy to be carb smart: If you fill your plate with half fruits and vegetables (especially non-starchy veggies), one quarter whole grains, and one quarter protein, you’ll automatically get more calorie-light carbs, plenty of fiber, and other important nutrients.
  5. Be smart about fruit. Fresh, whole fruit is your best bet. Frozen and canned fruit without added sugar is also a good choice. Look for fruit canned in water or fruit juice. Limit dried fruit and fruit juice – both are higher in calories than other forms of fruit.
  6. Be smart about veggies. Starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes are higher in calories than non-starchy veggies like broccoli, tomatoes, and spinach. But they are still calorie-light carbs — unless they’re fried. Fried potatoes (calorie-dense carbs) have 1400 calories per pound, while baked potatoes (calorie-light carbs) have about 500 calories per pound.
  7. Be smart about grains. Less processed is best — so choose more whole grains, like brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, oats, and barley. Whole grain bread is fine, but don’t use it as your grain for every meal. Try to mix it up to get more variety.

Carbs get a bad rap. We can restore their reputation by helping folks learn to be carb smart!

 

 

What’s on Your Fork?

Are you looking for an easy (and educational) way to brighten up a classroom, hallway, office, or cafeteria? Check out our What’s On Your Fork poster, bulletin board banner, and wall decals. They feature beautiful, professional photographs of real, healthy food on a black background – these really stand out!

There are so many fun things you can do with the What’s on Your Fork theme. Here are just a few ideas:

  1. What’s on Your Fork display: Start with our banner or poster, or make your own visual materials with pictures of fruits, vegetables, healthy protein sources, and whole grains. Leave space for people to add pictures of what’s on their own forks.
    • Kids can cut out pictures of healthy food from magazines or supermarket flyers, tape them to plastic forks, and create their own display.
  2. What’s on Your Fork selfies: Encourage people to snap a picture when they’re eating healthy food (if it’s on a fork, that’s fun; if not, that’s fine too!). They can share it on social media (#WhatsOnYourFork), share it with a friend, or keep it private.
  3. What’s on Your Fork with food groups: Let clients decide which food group they want to focus on and have them take pictures of what’s on their fork for one day, three days, or a week. Someone who needs to eat more vegetables would take a picture whenever there’s a veggie on their fork (or spoon, or plate, or bowl!). Do the same for fruits, whole grains, and lean protein.
  4. What’s on Your Fork sugar control: People might say they’re going to limit themselves to 1-2 treats a week, but “forget” when they walk by a candy dish or are offered a piece of birthday cake. Have them snap a picture when they eat a sweet treat (on or off a fork!) and keep it on their phone. Then every time they’re tempted by something sugary, they check their phone to see the last time they had one.

Getting to Know Barley

The most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that all adults eat at least half their grains as whole grains – that’s at least 3 to 5 servings of whole grains every day. The average American eats less than one daily serving of whole grains, and some studies show that over 40% of us never eat any whole grains. So, I’ve been on a mission to try different whole grains to add variety to our meals.

One whole grain that tends to be forgotten by many is BARLEY.

As a kid, I remember loving those little white fluffy things floating in my canned vegetarian vegetable soup.  That’s the barley.  If you are like me, this is the extent of your experience with barley, you may be surprised to know that it is the world’s fourth most important cereal crop after wheat, rice, and corn.

Barley can be prepared in many ways in addition to soups and stews. It used as a hot side dish or served as a cold salad. Or eaten like oatmeal. Barley flour is used in bread, pancakes, muffins, and cookies. If you’ve never eaten barley plain, the flavor can be best described as “rich” with a mild sweetness.

Nutritionally ¾ cup cooked barley contains 160 calories, 8 grams fiber and 6 grams protein. It is an excellent source of manganese, selenium, and thiamin and a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, copper, and niacin. There has been enough research documenting barley’s role in protecting heart health that the U.S. FDA allows barley foods to claim that it reduces the risk of coronary heart disease.

I went looking for barley at my local store.  It’s in the section with the dry beans and rice. I had to look high up on the shelf and found “pearled barley.”  Barley has a particularly tough inedible hull that adheres to the grain kernel. This hull is difficult to remove without losing some of the bran. The easiest way to get this off is to scrape or “pearl” it. That’s why it’s called “pearled barley.”  This process does remove some of the bran. Thusly, “pearled” barley is not technically a whole grain.

I contacted Kelly Toups, Director of Nutrition at the Whole Grains Council about only being able to find “pearled” barley on the grocer’s shelves. She responded that this is not a big problem because barley is different than other grains because the fiber is distributed throughout the grain kernel, rather than being concentrated in the bran.  This means that even pearled barley has a rather impressive amount of fiber.  Barley has 17% fiber which is the highest of all the whole grains. Comparing it to other whole grain foods: brown rice contains 3.5% ?ber, corn about 7%, oats 10% and wheat about 12%.

Toups told me that “whole grain barley does offer higher levels of many essential nutrients when compared with pearled barley.  One 45-gram serving of hulled (whole grain) barley has approximately an additional gram of fiber and protein, and has about twice as much magnesium as pearled barley.”

If you want to get the entire whole grain goodness of barley look for hulled barley or hulless barley. If you can’t find it at your store’s whole-grain aisle, barley can be purchased online.

Tips for cooking barley:  combine one cup of dry uncooked barley with three cups of liquid. This will expand to about 3 ½ cups of cooked grain. Whole grain barley can take 45-60 minutes to cook when simmered slowly. It can be helpful to use a rice cooker since you can cook almost unattended.

Reference:  Oldways Whole Grain Council, https://wholegrainscouncil.org

Cheryle Jones Syracuse, MS
Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University

 

Why I Love Teaching About Whole Grains

I love teaching about whole grains! One reason is the look on people’s faces when they understand the difference between a whole grain and a refined grain. I always use a diagram of a kernel of wheat (like this!). When they see the bran, the germ, and all the nutrients that are removed during processing, it’s like an “ah-ha” moment. I see this when I’m talking to third-graders, grandparents, and everyone in between.

Another reason I love this topic is because switching to whole grains is a small change that anyone can make. Swap whole wheat bread for white bread? Can do! Order brown rice instead of white rice? You bet! Small changes are do-able and can add up to a healthier diet in the long run.

We have everything you need to share the whole grain message in your classes, individual counseling, cafeteria, waiting room, or health fair. The Go for the Whole Grain poster and banner feature:

  • Photographs so people can see what all the different grains look like.
  • Information on three common whole grains: whole wheat, oats, and brown rice.
  • Information on whole grains that may not be as familiar to people: chia, farro, kamut, and quinoa, just to name a few.
  • A wheat kernel illustration showing the parts of a whole grain (for that “ah-ha” moment!).
  • Notations showing which whole grains are gluten-free.

Our posters and banners come with copy-ready handouts. Here are 7 examples of lessons they address that make great activities you can use in your classes:

  1. Only 8% of Americans eat the recommended amount of whole grains daily.
  2. Choose whole grains for nutrients like fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
  3. Health benefits of whole grains: weight management, blood sugar control, lower risk of heart disease and cancer.
  4. Recipe & cooking tips. Did you know that the package often has the best recipe and cooking tips?
  5. Comparison of whole wheat and white flour. This makes a great touching and interactive demonstration!
  6. MyPlate recommendation: Make at least half of your grains whole grains. And make one quarter of your plate whole grains, too!
  7. Quiz: How Well Do You Know Whole Grains? Make a fun table full of various whole grains without their packages and see who can guess which ones they are accurately!

Our All About Whole Grains Color Handout Tearpad is a scaled down version of the poster – perfect for people to take home. The Go For the Whole Grain Color Handout Tearpad covers serving sizes and whole grain substitutions, including how much fiber they provide.

Use our Whole Grain materials in counseling or classes on:

  • Weight control
  • Diabetes management
  • Cholesterol education
  • Cardiac rehab
  • General wellness
  • Healthy cooking
  • Nutrition for families and children
  • Nutrition for older adults
  • Grocery shopping
  • School breakfast and lunch
  • MyPlate
  • and more!

And don’t forget about our Go For the Whole Grain stickers and bookmarks! How about visiting the school cafeteria one day and giving a sticker to every student who has a whole grain on their tray or in their lunch box?

What’s Your Word for 2020?

Instead of New Year’s resolutions, choose a word for 2020. This word or phrase becomes your theme for the year. It guides you through making decisions, facing challenges, and just living your day to day life. (For a good overview of the word of the year concept, check out OneWord365.com.)

Why not have your clients or students come up with their own health and wellness word for the year? Help them decide what they want to focus on, then come up with a word or phrase that will remind them of this intention. Here are some ideas:

  • Ten: One of the best words – or numbers – for people trying to lose weight is ten, because a 10% weight loss brings big health benefits. If losing 10 percent is overwhelming, choose ‘five’ as your word. Resources:
  • Cook: Home-cooked meals are usually healthier than restaurant meals, but lots of people are in the drive-thru or delivery habit. Another phrase for this could be ‘eat at home.’ Resources:
  • Plants: A plant-based diet is one of our hot topics for 2020, and for good reason. Keep your clients focused on choosing more fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Resources:
  • Water: Choosing water as the word for the year can help your clients kick the soda habit. It can also help their wallets! Resources:
  • Whole: This word encompasses a lot when it comes to nutrition. It can remind clients to eat more whole grains, whole fruits (instead of juice), and whole, non-processed foods. Resources:

Your word for the year won’t work if you don’t think about it every day. So have your clients put it everywhere!

  • Use sticky notes to post the word throughout your house, office, and car.
  • Cut out the word from magazines and make a collage.
  • Use your word as a screen saver.
  • Set it up so that your word comes to you in an email or reminder once a day.
  • Put index cards with your word on them in your purse, wallet, desk drawer — anywhere you’ll see it frequently.

What’s YOUR word for 2020? Let us know!

 

 

 

3 Activity Ideas to Boost Whole Grain Knowledge

Whole grains are often great for health, yet most Americans consume too many refined grains and miss out on the benefits of whole grains… while adding excess empty calories to their eating patterns.

To help your audience learn about whole grains, their health benefits, and how to incorporate them into a healthful eating pattern, I’ve put together a few engaging activities just for you!

(And, if you’re really patient, you’ll find a PDF handout hidden in the post as well).

Take a look…

Activity #1: Whole Grain Shopping Sleuths

Gather a few packages of foods that have varying whole grain content. Divide participants into groups and give each group a collection of those packages. Have the groups line up their foods in terms of most to least whole grains per serving.

Once everyone has finished making their selections, review their work as a class.

Highlight the importance of using the Nutrition Facts label to evaluate whole grain content and draw everyone’s attention to which words to look for in ingredient lists. Make a note of front-of-package claims as well. Was anyone fooled by statements that hint being wholesome but are not whole grain, like, “100% Stone Ground,” “Multigrain,” “Honey Wheat,” etc? Explain the importance of 100% whole grains. Note that stone ground can be whole grain but you should check the ingredient list to be sure.

If time permits, have the groups combine to line up all the product packages from most to least whole grains. How did everyone apply the knowledge from your discussion?

Activity #2: Whole Grain Swaps

This is a brainstorming activity, so all you’ll need is a space to write down people’s ideas (a whiteboard or giant notepad works especially well) along with a writing utensil. Much of the information that could help your clients internalize this lesson can also be found in the Go for the Whole Grain poster, though it is not required.

Discuss the health benefits of whole grains. How do they impact blood sugar? Heart health? General nutrient intake?

Once your group seems to have a solid grasp of the importance of whole grains to a balanced eating pattern, move on to common grain foods. Which contain whole grains? Which contain refined grains?

Finally, to get to the crux of the matter, list common refined grain foods on your writing surface. What substitutions can people make in order to consume fewer refined grains and more whole grains? Discuss the ideas as a class, writing out compelling switches as you encounter them.

Activity #3: Whole Grain Quiz

Distribute copies of the handout How Well Do You Know Whole Grains? Have participants take the quiz individually (this makes a great icebreaker or take-home assignment too), and then bring everyone together to go over the answers, addressing any questions they might have about the information provided. If you’d like, you can distribute prizes like these whole grain stickers to people who got the most correct answers.