Take the Wholegrain Goodness challenge: testers can win £250 – NON TESTERS: chance to win £150. NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Try something different for your new year's resolutions this year - take part in the WholegrainGoodness.com challenge and be in with a chance of winning supermarket vouchers worth up to £250.

Here's what WholegrainGoodness.com, a not-for-profit campaign aiming to inspire people to eat more wholegrain, say about the challenge: "Most of us know it's important to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg every day, but did you know you should be eating more wholegrain to keep you healthy too? Nutritionists encourage eating at least three servings of wholegrain a day. But despite the nutritional benefits, national surveys show that 95% of adults don't do this, and almost a third don't eat any at all. So take part in our wholegrain challenge to help us inspire mums to get more nutritious wholegrain into their family's diet and we'll enter you into a prize draw"

The challenge is to include wholegrain in at least ONE meal or snack for the family per day for two weeks and then to add your feedback here by Sunday 9th February to be entered into a prize draw.

• "Official testers" (already selected) can win a £250 supermarket voucher of their choice

• "Non-official testers" (open to all UK MNers with at least one child aged between 2 and 16 living at home) can win a £150 supermarket voucher of their choice

You can use the variety of wholegrain foods available, such as wholegrain breads, breakfast cereals, pasta, rice, flour and even popcorn. And feel free to take part if you and your family already eat wholegrains. Visit WholegrainGoodness.com if you need help finding out what wholegrains are and to see what a serving of wholegrain looks like, as well as to get recipe ideas for inspiration and some top tips. If you have any further questions about wholegrain, ask their independent registered dietitian or go to the wholegrain FAQs (frequently asked questions) page, which we'll keep updating. You can get a free recipe booklet and sign up to their e-news alerts too.

Please add your feedback here on the following:

~ Let us know what you think of wholegrains and if you knew about the benefits already or not

~ Have you tried out any WholegrainGoodness.com recipes? How did you and your family find them?

~ Please add any other comments, recipes, tips or ideas you have too - we'd love to hear from you at various stages of the challenge

Thanks
MNHQ

Please note: comments made on this thread may be reproduced by Wholegrain Goodness (AHDB)

We have been doing this since August 2012.

Brown rice was the hardest to swap to. We did 3/4 white to 1/4 brown initially, then half and half, the 3/4 brown to 1/4 white then all brown.

Spottybra: how do you deal with the different cooking times of white and brown rice?
Also, I'd do white in correct amount of water, brown in excess. Whats the trick to cooking both together?

Non-tester.

My DH & DC eat wholemeal bread, I can't stomach it unless it's not toasted - I do prefer white but can manage the half & half stuff. They also like weetabix and I love porridge oats. The kids like rice cakes (Kallo & Organix) which are wholegrain.

I'll check out the recipes on the link above, see if I can get any ideas. Could try swapping from the white pasta to wholemeal. Happy to make the kids popcorn, never thought of it as a wholegrain! We eat quite a bit of rice, tried the brown but it took an age to cook it & didn't taste all that nice.

Thank you for picking me. The cupboards are full of suitable foods and I have lots of ideas, sadly we are all down with a vomiting bug at the moment so may be a couple more days before we can get started

I have been experimenting with wholegrain and must say I feel better for it. I thought I had a healthy diet whoever as a family we have not been eating enough wholegrain.
By simply changing to whole grain bread and fruit and fiber cereal I have noticed everyone is going to the loo better and I dont feel as bloated.
My daughter is very fussy but loves bran flakes and hasdecided she likes scones so I made sultana scones using the recipe book we recieved. My daughter was very happy with these.
I have also changed to rapeseed oil for all our cooking.
The other changes I noticed are my baby also goes to the loo better as I breast feed him and he also seems more settled with less gripe pains.

We had curry with brown rice lasts night. Was delicious! I never used to like brown rice. Tonight it's just simple beans on wholegrain toast. Simple but oh so good after a very very long bike ride!

Just popping in again today to report that whole grain waffles went down a treat at breakfast today. Worth a go for anyone else with a waffle machine...

Okay, outcome of the weeks adventures - we will definitely replace all white rice with whole grain, the taste is just better, with or without sauces. The bread is a keeper, and the cereal will join our rotation or options, especially the wheat biscuits. We never got as far as bran, but did try cous cous, quinoa and whole grain flour pizza bases - probably will add them into our cycle of meals for when we're being virtuous rather than a certain replacement. However, the big win was home made popcorn - hilarious, cheap and tasty - a concrete addition to our diet, so thank you!

we are about to try the wholewheat pasta tomorrow - do you think it will be OK for macaroni cheese? Good point to get wholewheat flour for waffles, pancakes etc - I would never have thought of that! Will get some this week .

would deffo recommend doing the wholegrain challenge to anyone but not just for a week even try it a few days the benefits are brilliant, we have been eating wholegrain for a long while now and as soon as you switch you can feel the benefits, you feel fuller quicker and stay full so no snacking, gives you tons more energy and the 'ahem' bowel department if you have any problems gets a lot better so all in all i think its brilliant! and really enjoyed doing this x

Today we made a lentil and vegetable lasagne with wholewheat lasagne sheets, instead of white. I didn't think it tasted any different and we all enjoyed it. We also made wholemeal bread rolls from a packet mix. They were nice too. I definitely prefer white bread but know it's not very good for me and so eat wholemeal and it is OK. I do quite like bread with seeds in but my daughter does not like bread "with any bits in"!

Arrietty (the Borrowers???) I used a different recipe for whole grain waffles - happy to post if you would like it...

I was very excited to be part of this challenge but there have been mixed reactions from the family. We've almost always bought one of the 50/50 types of toast for breakfast but since the start of the challenge I've changed it completely to wholegrain toast. One son loves it, other one doesn't and suddenly now he wants to have cereal for breakfast. Little does he know the Weetabix he has is also made from wholegrains! (Clever mummy! ;)) So I suppose the lesson so far is that if one type of product is less successful, try another! Nowadays there's quite a good variety in the supermarkets. I suppose that's been the easy bit, now I have to prepare myself for dinner times with wholegrain pasta and rice which I'm planning on including in my challenge for the second week. I sincerely hope I'll be pleasantly surprised by the kids reactions! [fingers crossed]

Thank you for the voucher; yesterday I purchased:

Wholegrain pasta
Brown rice
Wholegrain bread flour
Selection of wholegrain cereals

We generally eat wholegrain bread, but since purchasing a bread maker have tended towards having white bread (as the strong plain white flour is so much cheaper), we need to change this even if it is more expensive my resolve is to only have wholegrain bread from now on.
Planning on making the Thai burgers today with wholegrain rolls.

The children are on board and seem keen to try the wholegrain variant pasta and rice - will report back their views in the week.

Day three here of our wholegrain challenge, I had a good look through the website a few days ago and was happy and surprised to see how much food me and DD have in our diet that has wholegrain in it.

So far I have bought wholemeal flours, oats, rapeseed oil, a mixed brown and white rice, cracked wheat and wholemeal bread.

DD has taken some persuading on eating the bread, but I thought it was much nicer toasted than any other kind of bread, I think I might give some wholemeal pancakes a go this morning to see what they taste like.

I have made a banana bread and a carrot cake with the wholemeal flour, and I am intending on making the passionfruit muffins from the website this afternoon for next weeks lunches.

DD has weetabix for breakfast anyway, but she has a real sweet tooth, so I am making the frozen vanilla and raspberry yogurt.

I think the website is informative and it is easy to use, the recipes are fairly uncomplicated. I do think however, that some of the recipes are a bit unrealistic in terms of cost... For instance, as lovely as cod and salmon fishcakes sound, there is no way that many people can afford to buy three or four fillets of cod and salmon to put in fishcakes, those recipes might be better with tinned tuna or white fish...

Still going well here, we've continued with whole grain cereals and I'm doing our bread with half/half brown/white flour. We had our curry with wild rice which was lovely. I still haven't used the whole wheat penne though, it keeps putting me off when I look at it, not sure why!

We switched to wholegrain recently after I became worried about the lack of fibre in my families diet. The biggest changes have been incorporating brown rice into our meal plan twice a week - brown rice, salmon and veg "stir fry" , brown rice with dopiaza (treat night!) - even my 19 month old and 9month old happily munch on it!
The switch to wholegrain bread took a little longer but using 50/50 for a while made the transition easier!

Highly recommend wholegrain foods to any family

Bacon goes just as well on wholemeal rolls . Love Sundays!

Hi - the team at WholegrainGoodness.com have asked me to post the below:

"Yet again, we are blown away by the enthusiasm from MNers! There's some great recipes and tips. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us and thanks to the bloggers too – loving your blog posts. We hope you keep your posts coming! Thought I'd share my fave tips, especially if DCs and DHs/DPs! are hard to persuade – try just adding a little wholegrain to your usual recipes when cooking e.g. wholewheat flour with white flour or wild rice with long grain rice. Or try totally new recipes – maybe our Thai Turkey Burgers, Flavoured Popcorn, Beef and Oat Casserole or Chicken and Rice Soup

We've been answering your questions on our FAQs page here – if we've missed any, feel free to ask our consultant nutritionist here".

thanks, MNHQ

Despite not being well these last two days we have kept up with our wholegrain intake. We are finding this challenge easier than anticipated.
Here is how we got on...

Wholegrain Goodness Challenge Day 5

Breakfast
Joseph had his wholegrain first thing in his Shreddies.
Hubby has changed his breakfast to oats to see if this will help settle his stomach a bit.
The twins have stuck to their usual breakfasts but they will be having Shreddies over the weekend.

Lunch
The twins had some Mediterranean stew and wholegrain brown rice for their lunch.
Hubby had his homemade wholemeal bread sandwiches.
As I wasn't feeling very well I just had a slice of wholemeal toast.

Dinner
I have tried a new dish for dinner. It is a wholemeal twist on a chicken dish that is one of our favourite. I made crispy oatmeal chicken. I soaked the chicken breast in some freshly squeezed lemon juice with fresh thyme. I then dipped the chicken in beaten egg and coated the chicken on oatmeal and wholemeal bread crumbs. I baked the chicken in the oven and served with potatoes and vegetables. Everybody enjoyed the chicken cooked like this and I will certainly be making it again!
The twins had soup and wholemeal bread.

Snacks
I have baked some oat flapjacks today which were delicious.

Day5 - Results

Twins - 2 wholegrain servings
Joseph - 2 wholegrain servings
Hubby - 3 wholegrain servings
Me - 3 wholegrain servings

Wholegrain Goodness Challenge - Day 6

Breakfast
Hubby had oats for breakfast.
The twins had their usual breakfast while Joseph had Multigrain Boulders which do contain wholegrain.
Even I had some Shreddies this morning.

Lunch
We all had wholemeal bread sandwiches for lunch

Dinner
As it was Burns Night we had a true Scottish meal. I cooked haggis, tatties and neeps. For pudding I made a cranachan which has toasted oatmeal in. Haggis also contains oats so we got two servings in this meal!

Day 6 - Results

Twins - 2 servings
Joseph - 3 servings
Hubby - 4 servings
Me - 4 servings

We are nearly at the end of the first week of Wholegrain Goodness and I can honestly say that I am enjoying the changes in our diets and I think that we will carry it on after the two weeks are up!

See my blog post for pictures
Hijacked By Twins Wholegrain Goodness Challenge Days 5 & 6

Well I have done the challenge for a week now and am surprised that there has been no change to my diet. It turns out we eat a lot of wholegrains anyway so I am off to a happy start.

We only eat wholegrain bread anyway - I don't like white bread. Breakfast this week has been Cheerios or porridge. Lunches is sandwiches or stuff on toast and I did buy popcorn for snacks which was probably more filling than the biscuits I usually eat.

Next week I plan to get wholegrain pasta and brown rice and also try some of the recipes on WholegrainGoodness.com and will report back at the end of next week.

We've done a week now and feeling great! And DH (white bread man) has certainly got on board. I texted him yesterday and asked if could get some bagels on the way home - he brought back wholegrain ones without any prompting!

Having Veg chilli tonight with brown basmati rice. Realising a lot of our meals have been enhanced by using wholegrain versions of our usual staples. Can't see us going back to 'white' now. Made a lovely date and walnut cake too yesterday, using 2/3 wholemeal flour. Again, went down very well in our house and with guests.

One week into the Wholegrain Challenge, and it's been good to think about how much wholegrain we already had in our diet and how to add more. I already used 50% wholewheat flour for some regular dishes, like Sunday morning pancakes and in making pastry for savoury flan.
My DS says "I really enjoyed trying the turkey burgers, and we used wholemeal wraps. I have tried, and struggled a little, to have brown rice instead of white (I don't particularly like the sweet taste, although it's OK with some soy sauce). So far, the Wholegrain Challenge has been fun, and I look forward to trying new things".
Thanks to everyone who suggested mixing wholemeal pasta with white - will try that this week. Also want to try some dishes I haven't cooked before and am hoping that a quieter week at work will give me time and energy to do this. Quinoa?? Would love to try it, but if you can't buy it in Scotmid we probably won't be eating it!

Week 1 done. I'm afraid we just had white bread with our stew. I sent DH shopping and he forgot.

So far this has been a great challenge, it just goes to show how easy it is to make small changes and how small changes add up to become big changes towards a healthier diet.

I'm not sure if we feel any healthier but I definitely feel more virtuous. It has been so easy that we will continue with the changes. This week I want to try more of the recipes, rather than just swapping white for wholegrain in our usual meals.

Checking in to feedback on the weekend. We have been away so it hasn't been so easy:
Breakfast - oat & blueberry muffins, who,ewheat toast, cereals. No problem. Snacks and picnic food while travelling have also been fine- I made more if the cheese scones, with wholemeal bagels, but the problem was eating out. It is amazing how very little whole food meals there are in restaurants. So I do feel that we've underachieved this weekend and we will try to make up for it tomorrow!