Grains of Wisdom

Fall 2009

Carol Pratt, MS, RD, has been named as a dietetic consultant to the Wheat Foods Council. As a former employee of Kellogg Company, Carol served as their representative to the Wheat Foods Council board for many years, serving as WFC’s board chair for two of those years.

Carol J. Pratt is the principal member of CJP Consulting, LLC. Her consulting business focuses on nutrition, health and leadership skills seeking to advance business interests and improve processes. She has advised many corporate and non-profit organizations in areas of nutrition science, labeling and regulatory affairs, product development, benchmarking analysis, dietetic training and mentoring. In addition to her role with the Wheat Foods Council, she is currently the Kansas Innovation Center for Advanced Plant Design Human Health & Nutrition market segment research team lead, and serves on the Grains for Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Committee. She will be providing nutrition classes for Kalamazoo (Michigan) Habitat for Humanity new homeowners and has taught a graduate level business course at Western Michigan University.

Formerly acting as Director of Regulatory & Scientific Affairs of the Kellogg Company in Battle Creek, Michigan, her experience spans almost 32 years in the food industry. Ms. Pratt began her career in the test kitchens of Campbell Soup Company. She then worked for Mrs. Smith’s Pie Company, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of the Kellogg Company, then transferred to Kellogg’s headquarters in Michigan and assumed the position of Manager, Nutrition & Regulatory Affairs, where she was responsible for nutrition labeling compliance for all U.S. products. When Kellogg’s acquired the Keebler Company, she was promoted to Associate Director. Ms. Pratt represented the Kellogg Company on the Nutrition & Labeling Working Group of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the USDA Food Industry Roundtable.

Ms. Pratt graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. degree in Human Nutrition & Food. She continued her education at Cornell, receiving her M.S. degree, majoring in Food Science with a minor in Microbiology. During her graduate studies, she acted as a teaching assistant for several food chemistry lab courses. Welcome, Carol.

Millions of U.S. children have disturbingly low vitamin D levels, possibly increasing their risk for bone problems, heart disease, diabetes and other ailments, according to two new studies¹. Seven out of ten U.S. children have low vitamin D levels and nearly one in ten – 7.6 million American children – are actually deficient in vitamin D. While low vitamin D is risky, a vitamin D deficiency is a serious health threat in which the body begins to reabsorb calcium from the skeleton.

“It’s astounding,” said Michal Melamed of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York who helped conduct one of the studies published by the online journal Pediatrics². “At first, we couldn’t believe the numbers. I think it’s very serious.”

Rickets, a bone disease of infants caused by too little vitamin D, has been on the rise in the U.S. for several years. The last time there was an epidemic of rickets in the U.S. was near the end of the 1800s, ending when the U.S. began fortifying its milk with vitamin D.

Low vitamin D levels are especially common among girls, adolescents and people with darker skin, according to the analysis of a nationally representative sample of more than 6,000 children. For example, 59 percent of African American teenage girls were deficient in vitamin D, according to the study.

What is to blame? Researchers cite a combination of factors, including increased watching of television, playing video games, and computer time instead of going outside, covering up and using sunscreen when going outdoors, and substituting soda and other soft drinks for milk.

“This appears to be another result of our unhealthy lifestyles, including a sedentary society that doesn’t go out in the sun much,” Melamed continued.

Vitamin D can be made by the body when skin is exposed to sunlight, but sunscreens and clothing protection reduce the likelihood that sunlight is enough. Fortified milk, grain products including ready-to-eat cereals and juices are good sources of vitamin D.

For additional information on this study, please check these web sites: WebMD and Washington Post.

ADAPTED FROM:
¹ http://www.aecom.yu.edu/home/news.asp?id=392
² http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/

Comments and discussion for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans is currently underway. The Guidelines may go into areas of sodium, SOFAS (solid fats, alcohol and added sugars) and more detail into fiber and whole grains, such as the different kinds of fiber and how different whole grains have varying amounts of fiber. Other new areas that may be explored are prebiotic fibers and probiotics, dietary supplements, potassium guidelines, and maybe vitamin D.

The committee will also examine ways on how to eat healthy at a low cost, changes in consumer behavior and instructional systems to promote the new Guidelines. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines are expected to come out in the spring of 2010.

The July issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association¹ recently reported a study linking low-carb diets with obesity. Based predominately on a single 24-hour recall and selective inclusion and exclusion criteria, “Carbohydrate Intake and Overweight and Obesity among Healthy Adults,” found that a low-carbohydrate diet is associated with greater likelihood of being overweight or obese within the healthy, free-living population.

Researchers found that among healthy adults, the lowest risk of becoming overweight or obese may be obtained by consuming 47 percent to 64 percent energy from carbohydrates. The study team was led by Anwar Merchant, a nutritional epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Rather than judging whether one weight loss diet worked better than another, as several studies have inconclusively attempted in recent years, the researchers looked at the eating habits of a large number of healthy adults. Based on those eating habits, it was determined that the risk of being overweight was highest for those in the lowest quartile for carbohydrate intake.

Participants in the study consisted of 4,451 healthy adults, described as a “cross-sectional representative sample of free-living Canadians” and part of the Canadian Community Health Survey², Cycle 2.2. Participant diets were assessed in the study using a 24-hour dietary recall method³ developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About one-third of participants were given the dietary recall questionnaire for a second randomly chosen day. Additionally, adjustments in the results were performed for total energy intake, age, leisure activity expenditures, gender, smoking, education and income levels.

“Participants in the highest carbohydrate intake category had lower intakes of total calories, protein and fats but more fiber than those in the lowest carbohydrate intake category,” said researchers. “Sugar intake increased with higher carbohydrate intake, 46 grams per day, versus 103 comparing extreme carbohydrate intake.”

Results showed that overweight and obesity prevalence was 65 percent in the lowest quartile of carbohydrate intake, 54 percent in quartile 2, 51 percent in quartile 3 and 51 percent in quartile 4. “Carbohydrate intake and overweight and obesity were inversely related after multivariate adjustment,” the researchers continued. Interesting to note is that while a compelling inverse association was found between carbohydrate intake and the likelihood a subject was overweight, no such conclusions could be reached about associations with fat consumption or intake of particular foods such as vegetables.

“Intakes of fiber, protein, total fat or its subtypes were not associated with risk of overweight or obesity,” the researchers said. “Intake of total fruit, vegetables, salad, carrots, potatoes, other vegetables and fruit juices were not associated with overweight or obesity.”

To further understand the association between carbohydrate intake and overweight/obese among individuals who are not actively trying to lose weight, the researchers further analyzed the data by excluding subjects on high-protein or high-carbohydrate diets. They also looked at the data excluding subjects who were obese. In all cases, higher carbohydrate intake still was inversely associated with overweight and obesity.

SOURCES:
¹ http://www.adajournal.org
² http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/alt_formats/hpfb-dgpsa/pdf/surveill/cchs-guide-escc-eng.pdf
³ http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2003/030514.htm

Aruna from Dublin, OH asks: Can you please tell me which grains are considered Enriched Grains, and also tell me about grains in the diet at the time of pregnancy?

Hello and thank you for your question about grains. Any grain that is not labeled a “whole grain” or “100% whole grain” is considered to be an enriched grain product. Whole grains and whole grain products are those that use all three components of the wheat kernel – the germ, bran and the endosperm. The only way to make sure is to read the label. It should specifically say “whole” before the name of the grain, such as “whole wheat flour.”

Enriched white flour is the finely ground part of the wheat kernel called the endosperm. The assumption that everything good has been “stripped away” is a fallacy. Some of what has been milled out has been replaced through enrichment. Slice for slice, enriched white bread, as well as enriched grain products in general, are a good source of iron and the four B vitamins – thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and folic acid, as well as complex carbohydrates.

As far as pregnancy and grains, in 1998, the fourth B vitamin, folic acid, was added to the enrichment formula for all enriched grain products. As of 2002, a study showed that neural tube defects in developing embryos have decreased by 26 percent following the folic acid fortification program in the U.S. grain food supply. So if you are pregnant or are thinking about becoming pregnant, you should consider having enriched grains as part of your diet in order to help prevent birth defects. Enriched grains have twice the amount of folic acid as whole wheat products.

• September 9-10, 2009 - Northern Crops Institute Short Course, "Whole Grains and Health", Fargo, ND. Pratt to present.
• September 13 -16, 2009 - AACC International Annual Meeting, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, MD.
• October 17- 20, 2009 – FNCE Expo, Denver, CO, Council to exhibit.

The July 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association praised the Wheat Foods Council’s website for its dedication to “increasing wheat and other grain foods consumption through nutrition information, education, research, and promotional programs.”

Among the elements reviewed for consumers, the article featured WFC’s Grain Talk blog, recipe database, and the monthly Update newsletter. The WFC Just for Kids! pages were also highlighted, calling out its educational videos, games, quizzes and kids’ recipes featured in a cartoon format.

Professional resources included fact sheets (English and Spanish versions), symposium proceedings, and timely research papers on whole grains.

**WFC’s dietetic consultant, Carol Pratt, was interviewed by Body & Soul magazine in July on healthy food options for the fridge and freezer. She noted many healthy choices including whole grain breads, brown and wild rice (leftovers which can be frozen), and several types of pasta.

**WFC’s urban wheat field is still being featured in various media. The Octagon Group, the event planner organizing and coordinating the urban wheat field in lower Manhattan last year, won the Silver Ex Award for the Best Single-Venue/Single-Market Event category.

**Other news items include WFC’s 35th anniversary cookbooks and the Kansas Wheat Festival of Breads baking contest held in June in Wichita, Kansas.