Oldways is a nonprofit food and nutrition education organization, with a mission to guide people to good health through heritage.
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Dear Whole Grains Council members,
With back to school around the corner, WGC staff have been handling more questions about the new US school food requirements. If you have questions, a good place to start is by downloading our PDF of school food tips and regulations. Kudos to all WGC member companies now making products for kids' school lunches! |
| WG Month Promo Goes Live August 15 | |  Our "Good Grains for a Good Cause" sweepstakes, the centerpiece for this year's Whole Grains Month celebration, goes live on August 15. As we mentioned last month, this sweepstakes has two parts:
- We're spotlighting the charitable efforts of WGC members, especially those related to food issues.
- We're inviting consumers to nominate their favorite charity; one charity will be chosen at random to receive a wealth of whole grain products from WGC members.
 Each featured WGC member company will have a "window" like the one shown above. Initially, it shows your company logo and a graphic; when visitors mouse over it, the window "opens" to reveal your company's charity of choice. Contact Mallory Cushman (617-896-4832 or mallory@oldwayspt.org) if you'd like to reserve one of the last two windows, or would like to donate a case of your products as part of our Grand Prize.
We hope all of you will plan now to link to the "Good Grains for a Good Cause" page from your website, and talk up this sweepstakes through your own social media. You can download the logo here, and we'll send you the link when we go live. The sweepstakes will run through the end of September, as we celebrate Whole Grains Month.
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"Pearled" and "Milled" Not Whole Grain
| |  Just a reminder -- when you're formulating products or filling in Product Registration Forms for the Whole Grain Stamp program -- that pearled barley and pearled or semi-perlato farro are not whole grains. The pearling process removes some of the outer bran layers of a grain, resulting in something that's no longer whole grain. We've also seen "lightly milled" grains cause confusion lately; again, these are not whole grains.
A whole grain includes all of the original bran, germ and endosperm in their original proportions. If your ingredients have undergone any process that removes any of these parts, those ingredients do not count toward calculations for the Whole Grain Stamp. If you're not sure, contact Mallory Cushman (617-896-4832 or mallory@oldwayspt.org).
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New Partnership with Healthy Dining Finder
| |  The Whole Grains Council is always on the lookout for partnerships that will extend our reach and create more demand for whole grains. This month, we're pleased to announce that we've teamed up with Healthy Dining Finder, an online service that helps consumers find healthier options at restaurants across the U.S. The WGC is supplying content about whole grains for the HDF site, and linking from our Chain Restaurants page to more detailed information on the HDF site. In turn, Healthy Dining Finder will be cross promoting some WGC programs, such as our annual Whole Grain Sampling Day in April.
Here's to healthy teamwork! If you supply buns, pasta, oatmeal or other whole grain products to a chain that's not yet listed on our website, contact Cynthia Harriman and we'll add the restaurant to our list.
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Oldways is now an Accredited CE Provider
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Oldways, the parent organization of the Whole Grains Council, has long offered Continuing Education (CE) credit to dietitians for our many events, including WGC conferences. For years we've sought -- and received -- approval, event by event. Earlier this year, however, Oldways applied for and was certified as an Accredited Provider by the Commission for Dietetic Review. That means we keep on providing good information to health professionals -- but we don't need to get each program individually approved; it's a three-year blanket accreditation as a trusted provider.
This month we extended our accreditation to include self-study courses online, and immediately posted Oldways' first Online CE Course for registered dietitians and other health professionals. It's titled "The African Heritage Diet: An Innovative Tool for Combating Diabetes, Obesity, and Other Diet-Related Chronic Diseases." Stay tuned. We're planning to add an online CE course on whole grains within the next year. |
Best regards,
Cynthia Harriman
Director of Food and Nutrition Strategies
Mallory Cushman
Stamp Program Manager
... and from all of the Oldways and Whole Grains Council staff
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