# Which count as "WHOLE" grains?



## Darkstream (Sep 15, 2004)

Which of the following count as "whole" grains for diet puposes?

Brown rice - I know this one

Burghul?

couscous?

semolina?

polenta/cornmeal?


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## wasabi woman (Sep 15, 2004)

here's an interesting article which might answer your questions.

The Whole Grain Guide


glad you asked the question, I learned a lot!


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## subfuscpersona (Sep 15, 2004)

> Which of the following count as "whole" grains for diet puposes?
> Brown rice - I know this one
> Burghul?
> couscous?
> ...



I'm not sure what you mean by "diet purposes" but a whole grain is - ummmm - a whole grain. Other than brown rice, all the others you mention have been processed from the whole grain in some way, by cracking/using only part of the grain/precooking/milling.

An easy way to find definitions of these (and any other) terms is to go to Google and type in *define: <your term here>*.

BTW, _burghul_ doesn't appear this way. A straight google search for _burghul_ indicates it is simply cracked wheat. *Bulgur*, on the other hand, is is wheat that has been steamed whole, dried, then cracked.

And, as you probably know, polenta is a dish made from cornmeal. In the USA we called it corn meal mush, that that didn't sound so great on restaurant menus.


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## Darkstream (Sep 16, 2004)

Well really I am looking at glycemic index, or the relative carbohydrate complexity of the different forms of the grains.

I could not find a simple index for basic foods on the net. They are either very large and mostly irrelevant, or almost entirely irrelevant because they consist mostly of branded manufactured foodstufs that are location specific.

I assumed that a LESS milled or extracted grain would have a greater complexity than a fully refined product like white flour, even if it was not completly the whole grain.

But I may be wrong about that.


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## subfuscpersona (Sep 17, 2004)

*glycemic index resources*

I found 2 that might be of use

glycemic index database which lets you search for the glycemic index and glycemic load by entering the name of the food

Revised International Table of Glycemic Index (GI) and  Glycemic Load (GL)  Values—2002

Is this the kind of information you're looking for?


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## Darkstream (Sep 22, 2004)

Thanks.

The data base was initially helpful.

But these were both the lists I had discovered before, and they are full of location
specific food products.

Finally, http://diabetes.about.com/library/mendosagi/ngilists.htm is quite dangerous.
How can the glycemic index of wholemeal wheat flour range from  55 to 90, which is
nearly as much as pure glucose?

Unfortunately, this is not really very helpful.

A considerable increase in food labelling regulations is called for if people are to be
able to understand what effect a product is likely to have on them. I think this should
be a concern of healthy people as well as those on special diets.


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