Whole grain content of cereal products

This chapter covers the issues around reporting and measuring whole grains in food products, and why this is an important challenge to meet. Accurate quantification of whole grains in food is of fundamental importance for research on whole grains and for regulatory and labeling policies, including for checking compliance with regulations around labeling and health claims based on whole grain content. Recognition of whether a product is “whole grain” or contains whole grains is done based on product appearance. Cereal-based foods are highly diverse and in most categories of cereal products it is possible to have products that are 100% whole grain. The plethora of different ways of reporting whole grains in clinical trials has led to great difficulty in directly comparing different studies. Reports of whole grain intake may be as basic as people who report “eating more brown bread” through to a detailed breakdown of gram amounts of different cereal types in diet.