To me, this is the hardest part of my nutrition program. I feel like every time I figure it out marketers come up with a new way to complicate the labeling.

I like to bake/cook, so most of the year I can accommodate this pretty easily. With summer coming I'd like to be able to grab some ready-to-eat options to keep cooling costs down and enable us to spend more time outdoors.

With this meal component being required up to 5 times a day, here, I would love to hear how you guys do it in your programs. Favorite products, recipes and tricks of the trade?

For newbies, those who have not started the trainings yet, parents and anyone interested: These are the variables we are working with just for the "grain portion" of each meal. It may seem simple, but as is everything regulated, what you see is just the tip of the iceburg.

The training says:

When you see the following words, you will know that by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Standards of Identity, they describe whole grains that are used as ingredients:

Cracked wheat, Crushed wheat, Whole-wheat flour, Graham flour, Entire-wheat flour, Bromated whole-wheat flour, Whole durum wheat flour.

Common and usual names for other whole grains are noted below:

The word whole listed before a grain, for example, whole wheat. The words berries and groats are also used to designate whole grains, for example, wheat berries or oat groats, Rolled oats and oatmeal (including old-fashioned, quick-cooking, and instant oatmeal). Reconstituted whole
wheat can be considered whole grain when the reconstitution is done by the original milling facility to ensure the same batch of whole grain is returned to natural proportions. Request documentation from the milling company to state that they recombined the grain components to natural proportions of bran, germ, and endosperm. > Yeah, I'll jump right on that. <


Other whole-grain products that do not use the word “whole” in their description, for example, brown rice, brown rice flour, wild rice, quinoa, millet, triticale, teff, amaranth, buckwheat, or sorghum. >Yes, I had to google many of those. <

Does My Product Meet the Whole Grain-Rich Criteria?

1. Does item meet portion size requirements for the grains component as defined in SP 30-2012?*

2. Are at least 50 percent of the grains in the product whole grains?

3. Are all grains in the product whole or enriched?**

4. Is a whole grain the primary ingredient by weight (nonmixed dishes) or primary grain ingredient by weight (mixed dishes)?

5. Does the product contain ≥ 8 grams of whole grain per NSLP/SBP oz eq?***

6. Does the product packaging display one of the FDA-approved whole-grain label claims?

7. Does the product have a valid CN Label crediting oz eq Grains?

*Must contain at least 0.25 ounce equivalent grains in order to credit toward meal pattern requirements.
**Noncreditable grains should be limited to no more than 0.24 oz eq.
*** Require 28 grams of creditable grain per oz eq of which at least 14 grams are whole to meet the 50 percent whole grain-rich criteria.

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I am not on the food program, so I may or may not be of any help here. But this is what I mostly use/do:

I make dishes with:

Brown rice (surprisingly this freezes pretty well)

Quinoa by itself or a brown/rice quinoa mixture

Whole wheat pasta (where there is one ingredient - I get walmart's brand, it is .99/lb and lasts a while)

I make a lot of my own own WW bread, with a bread maker it is super easy. If I don't make it on my own I keep a pan of whole wheat wide pan store bought bread on hand.

I will also make different types of muffins using whole wheat four. I make a ton, freeze them and keep them on hand for when I don't want to make anything or turn the oven on.

We also eat oatmeal 3 times a week for breakfast here. I'm not sure about your area but at sprouts it is usually .99/lb in the bulk bin. On sale it goes as low as .49/lb.

I hope that helps at least a little bit!

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It does, Thanks

I am not on the food program, either. I do want to do what is best for kids development, though. Nutritional education was my weakest point in childcare. The kids were full and happy, but not necessarily well nourished. I often supplemented with pedia-sure through the years. Now I don't feel like I have to, I have a little more confidence with it.

I grew up cooking old school southern. A grain serving meant a cathead buttermilk biscuit, honey sweetened cornbread or a yeast roll topped with "a pat" (1 tbsp) of melted butter. At every meal, washed down with syrupy thick sweet tea.

I have made a lot of progress, but occasionally I still like to hear what everyone else is doing. I still want a fun menu.

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Good for you though!

When I was younger (think 18 and just moved out) my diet was absolutely terrible. I grew up with interesting eating habits where corn slathered with butter was often the only vegetable served. I don't think I had a salad until I was a teen I was in the "full but not nourished" category. I ended up having terrible migraines, skin issues and monthly kidney infections that would leave me hospitalized. After an allergy screening I found out I was allergic to a lot of stuff - and of course the overly processed food and my poor food choices were not helping. Once I did a diet overhaul health issues went away and I felt so much better.

One of the sites that helps keep me on my toes is 100 days of real food. She discusses a lot of what real food/vs processed food is and gives great meal and snack ideas. She also only eats whole grain products - which has helped me a LOT when looking for new meal and snack ideas. I used to go to the store, see a box of "veggie pasta" that was $4, had a great box design and think "this must be healthy!" Until I learned how the pasta is made, how our bodies process it, etc. It was basically just white pasta with powdered veggies in a fancy box. Yet the .99 cent box of walmart's whole wheat pasta in the plain box was better. Who knew? Not me at the time

*I am in no way affiliated with this site - it just helps me a lot

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I too love Lisa's site 100 Days of Real Food. She now has two cookbooks as well. It is great.

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I will check it out at naptime. It sounds awesome. Thanks!

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I am a big fan of Lisa/100 days of real food, too. I just downloaded her new book on kindle.

I use her pre made whole wheat muffin mix. I keep it in a bin in the pantry. Now I just measure it out, add liquid ingredients and bake. Easy peasy!


I use ww pasta, brown rice, hm ww bread, quinoa/quinoa & rice blend, ww crackers, whole grain/no sugar cereals etc as grains. I am almost 100% whole wheat/grain.

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Are you kidding me? 5 weeks of menus, with grocery lists, recipes, links to ingredients and grocery store price comparisons FREE; just for signing up for emails.

I just printed the menus out and read through the recipes. These are not complicated, like I expected, either.

The school lunch article, alone, gives enough no-cook meals to get through a week long summer power outage.

Good stuff, Thank you!!

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I get the emails from this site plus I'm part of the FB page she has lol; my biggest issue is when you can't eat wheat or Gluten (like my celiac kid, or heavens the 2 babes that can't have oats of any kind)... yeah, I'll stick to my brown rice, quinoa & corn meal recipes thank you. Thank goodness I am not on the FP

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My mom makes cornbread with whole wheat flour and coconut milk

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