TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Wed 09-Jan-13 16:10:06
We've been asked by wholegraingoodness.com, an independent, not-for-profit campaign that aims to raise awareness of the benefits of wholegrains as part of a healthy balanced diet, and to inspire and motivate people to eat them, to find 50 Mumsnetters to take part in a 2 week Wholegrain Goodness challenge.
Here's what wholegraingoodness.com say about the challenge: "Most of us know it's important to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg every day, but what many of us don't know is that we should be eating more wholegrain to keep us healthy too. Nutritionists around the world encourage eating at least three servings of wholegrain a day. But despite the nutritional benefits, national surveys show that 95% of UK adults fail to reach three servings a day. In fact, on average, most of us don't even eat that in a week, and almost a third of us don't eat any at all. To help us inspire mums to get more nutritious wholegrain into their family's diet, take part in our wholegrain challenge & we'll enter you into a prize draw."
This is open to all UK MNers with at least one child aged 16 or under living at home. Here is what's involved:
- If you're selected to take part, you'll be sent a £10 voucher to contribute towards your food shopping - this voucher will be for one of two supermarkets - you can submit your preference of supermarkets when you sign up.
- The challenge will last for two weeks, starting Mon 21st Jan - please only sign up if you and your family are available to take part during w/c 21st and w/c 28th Jan. You'll be asked to post your feedback on a thread on MN.
- The challenge is to include wholegrain in one meal or snack for the family per day for two weeks, using a variety of wholegrain foods available (e.g. porridge, popcorn, oats etc.). You can visit the Wholegrain Goodness website for their guide to wholegrain, for tips on how to identify wholegrain and for wholegrain recipe ideas.
- During the challenge you'll need to give your feedback on a thread on MN. You'll be asked to share any tips and ideas you discover e.g. how to encourage children to choose wholegrains, favourite family recipes using wholegrain foods, tasty on-the-go wholegrain snack ideas, or perhaps trying out and letting us know which Wholegrain Goodness recipes you like. All selected participants who post their feedback on the thread on MN will be entered into a prize draw to win a £150 supermarket voucher of their choice.
If you'd like to take part in the Wholegrain Goodness challenge, please sign up here.
We'll be in touch with the 50 MNers selected to take part in the challenge by Tues 15th Jan. If you're not selected but you'd like to try the Wholegrain Goodness challenge anyway, please do - there will be a separate prize draw for a £100 supermarket voucher of your choice for anyone who isn't an 'official' participant but does the challenge anyway and adds their feedback to the thread on MN.
Thanks
MNHQ
carocaro
Wed 09-Jan-13 19:58:47
£10 towards the food bill? I think this is very poor for what they are asking us to do, no incentive at all!
fuzzpig
Thu 10-Jan-13 15:21:09
Looks goods and would be a lot more achievable for me to do it as a group (support thread anyone? 
) than on my own.
MNHQ my Internet went silly while I was submitting my form - would you mind confirming if you received my entry please? 
Porridge is dirt cheap, carocaro - I get a box of oats for about 70p and that lasts me about 15-20 breakfasts. It's only expensive if you buy those sachets.
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Thu 10-Jan-13 15:55:39
fuzzpig - thanks - we've got your entry
insanityscratching
Thu 10-Jan-13 16:24:37
Me too dh has just been diagnosed with diabetes need to give the family's diet an overhaul I think.
I've entered. Not sure we eat any tbh! 
lottiegarbanzo
Thu 10-Jan-13 19:40:12
The related Wholegrain Goodness competition (for £250 supermarket vouchers) appears to be impossible to enter. I entered the answer and my details but there is no 'submit entry' button, so the page justs sits there, inert.
rhondajean
Thu 10-Jan-13 19:45:38
Ive signed up too, looks like a challenge we could learn from.
billybear
Thu 10-Jan-13 21:01:50
tried to enter wholegrain challenge have i managed it would not go anywhere
lottiegarbanzo - glad I'm not alone, have just spent several minutes feeling really stupid for not seeing any submit button for that comp too!
polly164
Thu 10-Jan-13 21:37:54
This would be a great way to get healthy, would love to try it.
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Fri 11-Jan-13 08:37:55
billybear - thanks - we've got your entry
Those of you with queries about the competition - it's separate to this - I'll pass your queries on to the team and will post here when I hear back
WholegrainGoodness
Fri 11-Jan-13 09:39:53
lottiegarbanzo and asuwere - thanks for letting us know! The Mumsnet team have fixed this for you now
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Fri 11-Jan-13 09:43:21
For anyone who was having problems finding the submit button on the competition page, we've done some fiddling and it should be fixed now if you want to try again. Thanks!
I think that a £10 voucher would be enough to offset any extra costs too. It's really about making some concious substitutions to stuff you'd already buy anyway surely - brown bread, rice and pasta instead of white and wholegrain cereals for instance. Oats are dirt cheap as you say ouryve and you can make them into flapjacks or add them to crumble topping too .... 
Exactly, MrsKwazii. Brown breads generally cost the same as white and wholewheat pasta and brown rice are pennies more than the white versions. It's not all about buying fancy blue millet fertilised with unicorn poo.
You know what would be helpful? If they gave you a list of wholegrain foods for you to try. Searching through the supermarket products for wholegrain food when I'm doing my weekly shop is going to be a real pain. I can only think of porridge and bread.
Any chance they could help us out with a list of suggestions? I know they have recipes on the site but I don't want to necessarily follow a recipe, I just want a few suggestions on what I can buy that would count as wholegrain. I can then work it into my own recipes.
Back2Two
Fri 11-Jan-13 14:24:28
I've done it. Think I might challenge myself anyway if I don't get chosen.
Is chocolate a whole grain?
McPhee
Fri 11-Jan-13 15:31:25
I'd like to enter. I know I'm not allergic to porridge
Please helen
Signed up, should be a great pairing with my NY resolutions!
Done. We could all definitely do with more wholegrains in our diet
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Fri 11-Jan-13 17:05:16
THERhubarb - there are a few links to more info in the OP but this is probably the most useful one for identifying wholegrain
Thanks Helen. All looks very, erm, healthy. You wouldn't be constipated would you?
Does Guinness count? (hopeful)
Oh YEAH, just checked and Guinness used barley, yeast and hops which are all types of grain are they not?
Guess where my tenner's gonna be spent?
Guinness and chocolate cake is divine TheRhubarb <innocent-just-saying face>
Ooo, just what need! Signed up & crossing fingers.
motherdelicious
Sat 12-Jan-13 07:13:13
I would love to sign up. Thanks!
LouiseFisher
Sat 12-Jan-13 16:25:42
This looks like an amazing way to become more healthy. I really want to change my diet and this is a good starting point
Signed up! I'll challenge myself to this starting Monday anyhow
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Mon 14-Jan-13 15:56:22
Thanks to everyone who applied for this - we're closing it now and will be in touch with selected participants as soon as possible. Look out for an email from me!
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Tue 15-Jan-13 08:38:58
I've just emailed the 50 challengers so please do check your inboxes (and spam folders - I'm terribly spamy sometimes!!)
If you haven't been picked, all is not lost! The challenge starts on Monday (21 Jan) and there will be a separate prize draw for non-'official' challengers who do the challenge anyway and post their feedback on the thread, or those who are already into wholegrain and post their thoughts on it.
Please look out for the thread starting on Monday - there will be a £100 supermarket voucher up for grabs for non-'official' challengers.
Woohoo am in... looking forward to the kickstart I hope this will provide.
Yay I'm in too!
Can't wait to sneak some more wholegrains into my processed-carb-obsessed husband
WhatWouldGrandmaDo
Tue 15-Jan-13 13:16:34
I've only looked at the snack recipes so far as thinking I'd love some new ideas for DS1's lunch boxes that the rest of us can enjoy too. But there were a few other things I'd like to try too - we eat too much (cheap) meat and I'd rather replace some of it with veggie stuff and buy better meat occasionally. May give beanburgers a go.
prakattack
Tue 15-Jan-13 13:43:46
Yay, I'm in too. Looking forward to giving myself a kick up the bum and trying kids with brown pasta/ rice etc...
look like im not one of the 50
.
Not in either
HQ - any chance the info could be shared with the rest of us too? The sound of wholegrain-filled recipes being mentioned above would be very welcome in this house.
Oops - OK - just found the links in the original post. Will delve into those some more.
Me too Blathers I must stop only thinking about what I can bake though or we'll all put on weight!
Ooh good MrsK. We can share recipes
I got my gift card today!
Tomorrow is supposed to dump half a tonne of snow on us so hopefully I will get eh chance to go spend it before it does!
Yay! Gift card recieved today and recipe book.
Also worried about the snow tomorrow and the chance of getting to the shops looks virtually nil, hoping to go on saturday if its all cleared. Just going to check out the weblinks for ideas
If I don't get to the shops then the forst few days are going to be "porridge, porridge, popcorn, porridge" .
I've been looking at the prices of things. The giftcard of course is plenty for the challenge, I'm not moaning about that but some things are so much more expensive in wholegrain/wholemeal versions! Value rice 40p/Kg brown rice 1.70/kg. White bread flour 44p/kg, wholemeal 93p/kg. I'm looking forward to playing with stuff like quinoa instead of looking at it in the supermarket trying to decide if I should buy some or not and I'm going to get some different flours for bread making and so on. I decided breakfast isn't going to count for us in the challenge as everyone tends to have wholegrain anyway apart form me who is a bit of a fan of sliced white for her toast in the morning.
My card has arrived today as well. I do fancy trying out some different grains as well as the obvious stuff. And as it's Burns Night next week, I'll be making this gorgeous pudding www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cranachan_66101 Not sure if all the whisky and cream cancels out the oaty goodness though
I'm looking forward to making some wholewheat soda bread as well to go with soups at lunchtimes.
I've also been selected for the breakfast biscuits. Healthy wholegrain eat better challenge vs biscuits for breakfast .
fuzzpig
Thu 17-Jan-13 18:11:13
I haven't seen an email so assumed I wasn't in but it's just arrived in the mail, yay!
I am crap at sustaining changes like this though, I need a support thread!
My giftcard arrived today. I'm not sure what wholegrains we'll be eating but porridge is for breakfast so that's a good start, I reckon.
TheOtherHelenMumsnet
(MNHQ)
Fri 18-Jan-13 11:05:07
Hi wholegrain goodness challengers - I've started the feedback/support thread for this now so please post their if you want to. I'll email you the link too if you're an 'official' participant.
If you're not an 'official' participant but are taking part anyway, please post on the feedback thread to be in with a chance of winning a £100 supermarket voucher of your choice.
Please see feedback/support thread here.
