This seemingly tiny bit of knowledge can take you through the rest of your life.

Whenever you are wondering whether the food that you are eating is a true whole grain, imagine planting it in soil.

If you were to plant a rolled oat in soil, would it grow??

And if you were to plant a piece of sprouted whole grain bread in soil, would it grow??

Probably not, right??

The rolled oat would turn to mush and disintegrate, as would the piece of bread.

But if you were to plant a WHOLE oat in soil, it would sprout forth and grow.

It would become an oat plant!

A bit of an exaggeration, I know, but the fact remains:

Rolled oats and sprouted whole grain bread are certainly far better for you than doughnuts, but they will never be real whole grains.

You simply cannot substitute cracked, pearled, rolled, steel cut, or any other partial grain, for whole grains.

You can eat both, but in most instances, you don't NEED to eat partial grains.

But you do need to eat REAL whole grains every single day for at least one of your meals, if not more.

Our suggestion is to use the partial grains, the cracked, pearled, rolled, steel cut, or any other, recipe specific.

What in the world does "recipe specific" mean?

Recipe specific means to use a cracked grain when called for in a specific recipe, when you desire a certain effect or result.

For example, if we wanted to make a creamy mushroom barley soup, we would use pearled barley, not whole barley.

Whole barley will remain chewy and firm, while pearled barley, which has been partially polished, will become soft and creamy.

But pearled barley will never grow into a barley plant. Once it's sealed integrity has been cracked, or polished, it quickly loses the vital energy needed to sprout forth and grow, as do ALL grains.

Another example is the ever so popular rolled oat.

For our dessert this week, the Sweet Potato Pie, we used rolled oats in the crust, because they can be roasted with rice syrup to become crunchy and delicious, like granola, and can then be ground into a tasty pie crust that meets everyone's expectation of what a pie crust should taste like.

If we were to use whole oats, they would cook into a very nice grain, similar to cooked brown rice. Delicious and al dente, but not pie crust material!

And again, the rolled oats would never ever be able to grow into an oat plant.

So when you think in terms of energy, vitality, health, and maximum nutrition, would rolled oats be what you would want to eat each morning, or would you prefer a steaming bowl of whole oats?

Whole Oat Porridge

We suggest that you eat whole oats / grains on an everyday basis, and reserve the rolled oats or other somewhat processed grains for specific dishes or recipes.

And by the way, you can make breakfast porridge out of any whole grain. Mix it up. Be adventurous. Alternate between using millet, quinoa, whole barley, brown or black rice, whole oats, and any other whole grain, daily.

Whole grains are complex carbohydrates. The entirety of the whole grain is a slow release complex fuel for our bodies to run off of. The fibrous outer coating of the whole grain releases necessary and complex sugars into the bloodstream slowly, and can fuel us for many hours.

Simple carbohydrates such as bread, crackers, chips, dry cereal, granola, rice cakes, and so on, no matter how they throw the word "whole grain" around in their title, are NOT real whole grains. They are a much simpler form of fuel, and impact the blood sugar levels in a much less positive way.

Why is this entire concept of real versus partial whole grains so important?

Because:

Our very life depends on plants, in all of their various forms.

Whole grains are one of the most important forms that plants take on in order to feed and nourish us.

Humans have yet to master the ability to photosynthesize.

That is, to turn sunlight, air, water, and soil into food.

We wish that we could stretch our limbs high into the sky, and simply pull the energy of the sun, air, water, and soil directly into our bodies, as plants do.

Life would be so much simpler if we could.

And Wholly Macro would be out of a job!

But alas, we cannot.

Only our plant friends can do that.

And quite miraculously, don't you think?

To get the best and most energy and nutrient value from whole grain plants (and all plants), we need to eat them in as whole a form as possible.

We need to eat them when they are literally as full as possible of all of the vital nutrients necessary to sprout forth and grow. This does not mean that we need to eat our whole grains sprouted. We don't need to, although that is always a nice option. We just need to eat grains that have the potential to sprout. 

There is only one way to do that.

And that way is to eat the real WHOLE grain.

Remember this wisdom: Will It Grow? Could this "whole grain" that I am about to eat sprout forth and grow?

This is the tool that will help you to always choose wisely, and to clearly differentiate between partial whole grains, which are often times imposters cleverly packaged and marketed to appear as whole grains, and real whole grains.