Whole Grain Goodness Challenge feedback thread - chance to win supermarket gift cards! NOW CLOSED

[PoppyMumsnet]

Here's what WholeGrainGoodness.com, a not-for-profit campaign aiming to inspire people to eat more whole grain, 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 high fibre foods are also an important part of a healthy, balanced diet? The dietary recommendation for adults is that we should aim for at least 30g of fibre a day; but currently only manage, on average, about 18g. Whole grains are a great source of fibre and so public health advice is to base our meals on starchy carbohydrate foods, and to choose whole grain varieties where possible.

So try something different for your new year's diet resolutions this year – take part in our whole grain challenge, involve your family too if you can, and add your feedback here to be entered into a prize draw."

Here's what's involved:
~ Official testers (those already selected by MNHQ) who add a comment here between Monday 6 February and Sunday 26 February can win a £250 supermarket voucher

~ Non-official testers (open to all UK MNers) who add a comment here between Monday 6 February and Sunday 26 February can win a £150 supermarket voucher

• The challenge is to include whole grains / whole grain foods in at least ONE meal or snack per day for two weeks and tell us what you think by adding your feedback here. Involve your family too if you can.

According to Wholegraingoodness.com:

"There’s so much variety available to choose from, such as wholemeal breads, flours, rolled oats, whole grain breakfast cereals, rye crackers. Even popcorn is a whole grain food! Perhaps try going half-and-half, like mixing white with wholemeal flour in baking, wild rice with white rice or brown pasta with white pasta. If you already eat lots of whole grain, feel free to take part in the challenge too, as we’d like to know what you think also, to help us inspire others to eat more delicious and nutritious whole grains.

"If you have any questions about whole grains go to WholeGrainGoodness.com and check out the Guide to Whole Grain pages and the FAQs, or use the Contact Us form. To help you get cooking with whole grains, try these delicious Recipes created by professional home economists and dietitians, designed to show that healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring – it can be surprisingly good!"

Please add your feedback below on the following:
~ Let us know what you think of whole grains / whole grain foods 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, photos, recipes, tips or ideas you have too – we'd love to hear from you at various stages of the challenge.

Thanks
MNHQ

Closing date: Sunday 26 February. Winners will be selected at random from all posting a comment: one ‘official’ tester and one ‘non-official’ tester – prizes as above.

Please note: posts on this thread may be reproduced by Whole Grain Goodness (AHDB).

We have been involved in the trial for a week and I have been switching a regular product for a whole grain product once a day. So far we've had: bulgar wheat, whole grain lasagne, whole grain snacks. Our favourite so far was the bulgar wheat with a beef chilli (recipe from website but we had with the wheat and not the cobbler) it was absolutely delicious! My husband and 2 year old gobbled it up. On the menu this week is the oat baked cheesecake and I will try and remember to take a pic for the thread. Feeling positive about the trial. DH and DS haven't noticed or complained about the change and we've not been needing as big portions either. Never really tried wholegrains before!

Made the switch to this bread and it is so delicious. So nutty and perfect for toast

Non tester, I started this challenge last year when I wanted to lose some weight and just replaced white rice for whole grain basmati ( had to check the packaging as brown wasn't actually whole grain ) added extra veggies to chilli and served with the rice and did the same with bolognese sauce and pasta. I've really enjoyed the whole grain bread in the morning as toast with marmalade, much more flavoursome and filling.

Unfortunately I had to skip the first few days of this challenge due to a stomach bug and it took a few days until I actually felt like eating anything. But the last several days have gone really well, we've made some simple changes and in the upcoming week I'm looking forward to being a bit more adventurous.

I already eat porridge for breakfast most days, I use 2 parts whole milk to 1 part porridge oats (Flahavan's is my favourite) and usually add something like poppy seeds, roasted chopped hazelnuts, frozen blueberries or bananas, honey and cinnamon.

We had wholewheat spaghetti with tuna sauce the other night which the kids loved. I bought some Biona brown jasmine rice which has a great flavour and is quite chewy (in a nice way). I added some tamari and sesame seed oil, and my 3yo ate loads.

Had mixed success with wholewheat pancakes! Yesterday morning I made wholewheat buttermilk pancakes, using half white flour and half wholewheat. They were very popular and I would definitely make them again. I also made savoury wholewheat drop scones with cheese from the River Cottage Every Day cook book, that used entirely wholemeal self raising flour and was not exactly a hit. My 1yo pretty much refused to eat them and the 3yo had a few bites with sour cream (she mainly used the pancake as a vessel for licking off the sour cream...) but I don't know if the dislike was due to using all wholemeal flour instead of 1/2 wholemeal 1/2 white, or if perhaps they expected pancakes to be sweet?

Today I picked up some amaranth from Waitrose but when I checked some cookbooks at home I realised it's a seed and not a grain, but I hope it still counts! I'm adding it to a minestrone-type soup so we'll see how that goes. There's a recipe in Anna Jones' A Modern Way to Eat that mixes amaranth with porridge oats for a porridge so I'll try that in the coming week.

I love baking so for the rest of the week I'm going to try to experiment with spelt and rye. If anyone has been adding wholegrains into their baking I'd like to hear some suggestions!

This was my packed lunch sandwich last Friday - pretty much any filling tastes amazing on seeded whole meal bread!

I've tried to make risotto with other grains. Delicious but tastes more like pilaff - I'm still convinced risotto rice is the only grain that gives the distinctive creamy taste of risotto.

Hey guys

So we are a week in and I wanted to give my half way point feedback :)

We started off by making some granola bites for snacks - to make these I used toasted rolled oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts (left over from christmas!) all mixed with whole earth peanut butter and honey. Super easy to make we just mixed all the ingredients together and then lined a baking tray with clingfilm and pressed the mixture into it and left it in the fridge to set. Once they were set I cut them up and dipped 1/ in white chocolate, 1/3in milk chocolate and left the rest plain. These kept really well int he fridge in an air tight tupperware container and have lasted a week without going off and have been in the lunch boxes every day.

We have used a variety of whole grain products for main meals.

The fave so far was a risotto made with half pearl barley and half brown rice which was a dinner plus a lunch the following day. This took the longest to make at around an hour including prep and cooking time but was delicious and the mix of the grains was really great

We already eat whole wheat pasta - it's a lot nuttier than white pasta and I personally find it's less bloaty - we have had tuna and sweetcorn pasta bake as well as a spinach and mixed bean bolognese veggie meal with my vegan niece

The other thing we have introduced is quinoa - I have only ever had it before as part of a packaged salad - had this made with a veggie stock and chopped peppers and served with lemon basa which was surprisingly good - I was impressed with how easy it was to cook.

Other ways we have introduced whole grain - we did home made crutons from wholegrain seeded bread to use in salads and soups - these keep for 3-5 days easily in a sealed container and I have been having them with my soup lunches for work, we have also introduced a sprinkling of granola over fruit and yoghurt for desserts.

So far we have found it relatively easy to introduce more whole grain into our diet - basics like pasta and rice are reasonably priced however we have found that some of the whole grain products can be a bit more expensive

I just made my favourite banana bread recipe. It's from the BBC Good Food 101 Bakes and Cakes book and contains wholemeal flour and oatmeal (as well as 4 bananas so brilliant for using up the squidgy ones!)

It's really easy to make and comes out quite dense and moist. It also freezes really well so I wrap slices in foil and then just take them out as needed for lunchboxes etc.

Day 7: Less wholegrains today due to the massive roast dinner with family! We did have soup for a starter though and had some homemade wholemeal bread with it which was lovely! So I've had my daily dose!

Week one went well, looking forward to week two now!

Tester and to be honest my children and I were very surprised when we checked all out regular cereal boxes and found they are all Whole Grain. So breakfast has seen no change.

Popcorn is already a favourite snack in our house so again thumbs up.

We've been trying whole-wheat pasta and looking to ensure our bread is also wholegrain.

Overall the family is enjoying the small changes we are making.

Really loving the wholegrain pittas and rice. Need to adopt more of this into our daily diet.

Haven't done anything inventive the last couple of days I'm afraid. We had wholegrain bagels for breakfast yesterday, and oats with yoghurt and fruit for breakfast this morning. It is making me realise that we don't have to try hard to eat wholegrain every day as we generally do it without thinking.

New week - enjoying the whole grain experience of cooking and eating - finding and purchasing more tricky. I only have a small Sainsbury's near and I have to spend quite some time in and amongst the aisles looking for the wholegrain, wholemeal varieties. They could do with a dedicated aisle. Anyway enjoying the cooking and finding new recipes and new ways to eat. My hubby is now taking the wholegrain packet of Fruit & Fibre to work with him, to make sure he isn't having to choose an unhealthy selection. Going to make him some pasta salads for the week ahead, and the microwave rice although I feel can be expensive is fantastic for taking to work and adding to an already prepared tub of salad. So really enjoying it.

Going to try this, looks great.

As an ardent lover of all white carbs, I thought this challenge would be really difficult for me. I don't like brown bread and would never choose brown pasta or rice. But after looking at the wholegrain goodness website I realised that there were simple swaps I could make to add wholegrains into my diet. For the past two weeks, I've had porridge or a wholegrain cereal for breakfast. I like the way it makes me feel fuller until lunch time. And I'm actively choosing wholegrain snacks like popcorn and rice cakes which give me more slow release energy. I'm pleasantly surprised with the results and will be sticking with wholegrains.

day 6/7;
Bit of a disaster yesterday with Yorkshire puds. Tried wheatmeal and found that they didn't turn out crisp and light as they should, though they rose OK. More like dull fairy buns than anything really. Definitely not one for us as they were much too stodgy. Had a little of the batter left and tried a pancake which was OK, though very chewy.

Will not bother with the Yorkshires again, but pancakes are possible with perhaps a different type of wholegrain flour, and/or a smaller proportion of whole grain. I have used buckwheat for blinis and wonder if this might be a better bet for the Yorkshires, mixed with some white flour - though they might be rather an unappetising colour!

I love wholegrains and try to include them in my and my family's diets whenever possible. Breakfast is great as its straight to the All Bran for me and some wholewheat toast for DD and DH. We also only buy wholegrain pasta now and that has become a firm family favourite.

Inspired by your post, I will be researching recipes to include more wholegrain in our diet.

Tried overnight muesli again , added some milk to my layers ( muesli and milk , layered up with Greek youghurt and frozen mixed berries )
Very nice , easy breakfast
Day off today. So I've been into a local health food shop , and bought whole grain risotto rice , brown rice and some buckwheat flour , planning a cake and some pancakes with that
Pasta with tuna and rocket tonight , will post a photo if I remember 😀
Enjoying this challenge 😋

Do let us know how you get on with the whole grain risotto rice, tourist

Half way point for us today. We are generally a very committed white processes faniky- white bread, white rice, white pasta- I've always disliked the "brown options. Despite this this I am thoroughly enjoying it. I am surprised at how easy it has been to to introduce whilegrain choices- a habit I can see continuing. On the weekend I had an unexpected trip to a and e and still managed to easily incorporate wholegrain into my choices, proving it's very quickly become the norm in our house.

I have made so far a lovely barley stew, spelt and blue cheese risotto, wholemeal bread, oat enriched bolognese, oat and wholemeal scones, oat and mustard crusted salmon and enjoyed porridge for breakfasts.

I do think that this challenge is well placed in winter- perhaps it will be harder to include so much in summer time when I crave less stodgy fare.

I've also found that the whilegrain options are more expensive- not a problem for me right now but if that were to change I think I would switch back to white options before giving up free range meat and eggs.

Biggest challenge for me is getting OH to eat "healthy" foods! Managed to add some wholegeain rice in with our dinner today which was baked chicken and bombay potatoes. I really enjoyed it and he ate it so that is progress ☺️

I used to be a big eater of seeds and wholegrain breads etc years ago but my husband likes the white versions of everything so they slowly just disappeared from my diet. For the last week or so I've taken to eating a bowl of muesli instead of an unhealthy dessert, I actually enjoyed it more and it was definitely more filling than a bowl of ice cream. I've made more of an effort to eat healthier snacks recently and have even chosen the little seed snack packs at the checkout in Lidls instead of a cookie.
A few days ago when I made my normal curry, I served mine and hubby's with wholegrain rice (the kids wouldn't eat it and only wanted white).
I have already started adding pearl barley to pie fillings and casseroles to bulk up and means I can use less meat which cuts down on cost and calories a little.
I can't say I feel any better health-wise so far but I've noticed I have been making healthier choices, certainly when it comes to snacking at least.

Oats give me an upset stomach and bad wind.

Wholegrain bread terrible acid.

Any advice appreciated!

I can't believe it's week 2 already! I've really been embracing this challenge and have now found myself adding more and more whole grains into my diet. I just brought this porridge and am enjoy this for breakfast :)