One of my favorite great harvest t-shirts is one that has a superhero figure on the front, with the tagline - "Truth, justice and whole grains". We got these shirts by passing "bread school" at the Great Harvest headquarters in Dillon MT, so they are a little rare too. The tagline is funny and brings to mind the popular superheroes, but also describes three good things. While we don't make truth, or decide on justice (we are just humble bakery owners), we do know a few things about whole grains and how good they are. And our appreciation for whole grains has grown even since owning the bakery 3 short years ago.
Whole grains sometimes get a bad rap or have a negative connotation (since they are in the carbohydrate family). After some recent conversations, I realized that there may be some misconceptions about whole grains, so wanted to point out a two things about our wonderful whole grains.
First, freshly milled whole wheat will mean that you get more nutrients, more fiber and better taste. Compared to white flour (which comes from just one of the three parts of a whole wheat kernel), the whole wheat flour wins in every category (at least the ones you care about... health, lasting energy, vitamins... to be fair, white flour does last longer on the shelf, so it has that going for it). Together, the three parts of the kernel, give a good balance of energy, vitamins, healthy fat and fiber.
Second let's talk about nutrient density. It is widely recognized that vegetables and fruits are healthy for you. What are vegetables? Vegetables have carbohydrates, vitamins, and fiber, plus vegetables have more water weight, so basically there are less calories for an equal portion. This is a good thing, and we need water, but here is the rub, I hear people say things like "carbs make you fat". What they mean when they say this is that it is easy to eat too many carbohydrates (they taste good and they are very dense). Here is an example, what if you ate 100 grams of vegetables and 100 grams of whole wheat flour? The vegetables (ill use broccoli) contains 89 grams of water and 34 calories, while the whole wheat has only 11 grams of water and 340 calories.
You could eat about 10 times the amount of broccoli (by weight) to get the same calories as in the whole wheat. Most people would not or can not do that, eat 10 cups or broccoli at a sitting...What this means is that whole grains are an efficient way to get the calories you need to go for a run, run a company, and make dinner for your family, as it is easier to eat a slice of bread than 5 cups of broccoli to get the same calories.
Broccoli is good for you, and please eat broccoli, just don't think that the carbs in broccoli are good and the carbs in the whole wheat flour are bad, please recognize that there is a lot more energy in the whole wheat flour and adjust your portion accordingly to keep your calorie intake the same as your calories burned. Let us know if you ever have any questions.
Sources:
https://wholegrainscouncil.org/what-whole-grain
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/bell-peppers#section1
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/wheat#section1
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/broccoli#section1