Whole Grains and Health. Группа авторов
as in the intact kernels. Only dry flour of whole maize is included, but not fresh maize and popcorn. The three Scandinavian countries Denmark, Sweden and Norway have agreed on common rules for declaration of healthy foods in a system entitled “The Scandinavian Keyhole” (Anon. 2009). These rules, accepted by the health authorities in the three countries, include the following definition of whole grain. “Whole grain is defined as intact and processed (dehulled, ground, cracked, flaked or the like) products where endosperm, germ, and bran are present in the same proportions as in the intact grain. If these fractions are separated under processing, they should be added back so that the final product has approximately the same relative proportions of the three parts as in the intact grain. The whole grain definition includes the following whole grain cereals: wheat, rye, oats, barley, maize (dry seeds), rice, millet, and sorghum. Wild rice, quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat are not included.”
2.2.3 The HealthGrain definition of whole grain
In Europe, a definition of whole grain was recently launched by a group of researchers from the HealthGrain EU project (2005–2010) (van der Kamp et al. 2014). This definition is based on the following scopes
1 More comprehensive than existing definitions
2 Pan – European
3 Reflecting current industrial flour manufacturing practices
4 Useful mainly for nutritional guidelines and labeling purposes
The main part of this definition states: “Whole grain shall consist of the intact ground, cracked, or flaked kernel after the removal of inedible parts such as the hull and husk. The principal anatomical components (the starchy endosperm, germ, and bran) are present in the same relative proportion as they exist in the intact kernel. Small losses of components (that is less than 2% of the grain/10 % of the bran) that occur through processing methods consistent with safety and quality are allowed.”
The following cereals are included: wheat, (including spelt and emmer, faro, einkorn, khorahan wheat, durum), rice (including brown, black and other colored rice varieties), barley (including hull‐less or naked barley but not pearled), maize (corn), rye, oats (including hull‐less or naked oats), millet, sorghum, teff (tef), triticale, canary seed, Job’s tears and fonio (black fonio, Asian millet) as well as the pseudocereals amaranth, buckwheat tartar buckwheat, quinoa and wild rice.
In Europe, the European Food Safety Authority states that the term whole grain is not sufficiently defined to be used for health claims and therefore the explanatory text of the HEALTHGRAIN definition claims: “This whole grain definition is expected to be useful in the context of nutritional recommendations and guidelines, and nutrition claims. Health claims on the other hand must be based on documentation of specific effects of grains or grain components of the diet.”
This summary of some existing definitions of whole grain indicates main similarities between different countries. One clear difference however is that the Nordic countries do not include pseudocereals. Which grains are to be included are sometimes determined by the grains that dominate on the market in a region. Another determining factor is what the definition should be used for: scientific studies (where consumption should be related to health effects), consumer information or product development.
2.3 Definition of whole grain food
As no generally accepted definition of whole grain foods is available, several working groups in different countries have dealt with this issue. A review by Ferruzzi et al. (2014) stated that qualification standards for whole grain foods vary among countries, governments and regulatory authorities, resulting in lack of standardization when it comes to labeling. This review also stated that the terms whole grain and dietary fibre are often used interchangeably in labeling, resulting in confusion for many consumers when buying whole grain foods. Establishing a whole grain food definition is therefore critical for moving the field forward not only to improve dietary guidelines, but also to provide standards to the food industries when producing tasty foods with high content of whole grain. A common definition would also aid the standardization of studies on health effects of whole grain foods.
Recently, HealthGrain Forum, a non‐for‐profit consortium of academics and industry working with cereal foods, established a working group to gather input from academics and industry to develop guidance on labeling the whole grain content of foods (Ross et al. 2017). The aim was to come up with a simple whole grain food definition that aligns with whole grain intake recommendations and can be applied for all product categories. The HealthGrain Forum recommends that a food may be labeled as “whole grain” if it contains 30% whole grain ingredients in the overall product and if it contains more whole grain than refined grains (both on dry weight basis). It also provided recommendations on labeling whole grain content in mixed‐cereal foods such as pizza and ready meals, and highlighted a need to meet health nutrition criteria. The definition allow comparison across product categories since it is based on dry weight and is a move away from generic whole grain labels and instead encourages reporting the actual percentage of whole grain in a product.
2.4 Recommendations for intake of whole grain foods
As previously discussed, definitions exist for whole grain, however, a consistent official and international definition for which components should be included in whole grain foods has not been agreed on, although recent suggestions have been made (Ross et al. 2017). Studies have consistently shown that dietary fibre is one important contributor to the health benefits in whole grain, but it does not explain all of the effects of whole grain (Fardet 2010; Reynolds et al. 2019). The vast amounts of bioactive components are, as mentioned before, found in much greater concentrations in whole grains compared to the refined counterparts, but vary however highly between grains and botanical fractions (Spaggiari et al. 2020; Zhu and Sang 2017). The multitude of different bioactive components in whole grains is present in different proportions of germ, starchy endosperm and bran. Sometimes fractionated germ and bran are added to the refined flour. Both of these fractions contain different bioactive components with putative health effects, but these ingredients alone do not qualify as whole grain food and should not be described as such (Ferruzzi et al. 2014).
2.5 Dietary recommendations for whole grain intake
Many countries have recommendations for the intake of whole grain. In these recommendations, the specific quantities of whole grains to be consumed per day varies considerably (Frølich and Åman 2010; Ferruzzi et al. 2014). Also, recommendations of whole grain products are given in many guidelines internationally, either quantitatively (g) or qualitatively (eat more) (van der Kamp and Lupton 2013). The quantitative recommendation varies between a minimum of 48 g (US) and 75 g (Denmark) of whole grain per day.
Inconsistency in labeling and large variation in the amount of whole grain in products labeled as whole grain foods makes it difficult for the consumers to choose whole grain products. The consumers often believe that a high dietary fibre content is equivalent to high amounts of whole grain, which is not always the case since the content of dietary fibre in different whole grains vary considerably (from about 3% in rice to about 20% in rye). Isolated and synthesized dietary fibre from different sources could also be added to the products and wrongly indicating high whole grain content on the label.
What qualifies as whole grain products varies greatly in different populations and makes it challenging to determine the true intake of whole grain as g per day. Various classifications have been used in different studies such as:
1 whole grains listed as first ingredient on the label
2 dietary fibre rich products
3 products with more than 25% or 50% of whole grain
4 dark bread
The content of whole grain may be based either on dry weight or on fresh weight of the product. Foods with a high content of water will show much lower figure of whole grain than if this figure was based on dry weight. In some countries,