Are whole grain and multigrain the same thing? Most people only notice the terms alongside the new fitness or diet food that has hit stores. Whole grain denotes that all parts of the grain kernel have been used. On the other hand multigrain denotes that this food item contains more than one type of grain, these may or may not be the whole grains. While that solves the question of what they are there still remains the question of which one is healthier.

Whole grain kernels have 3 parts - The bran, the endosperm and the germ. These can generally be found in foods like oatmeal, popcorn, quinoa and brown rice. While whole grain foods are healthier than most other foods, it is important that you keep an eye on the sugar content and other ingredients in the products that you buy. These are just a few of the benefits of whole grain.

• Whole grain products are high in nutrients and fibre.
• They lower your risk of heart disease.
• They reduce the risk of obesity.
• They help your digestive system.
• They lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Multigrain may have many different types of grains, in different quantities and in different food items. For the sake of understanding let us take a multigrain bread as our multigrain food item. An average loaf of bread is made from wheat but a multigrain bread may also include barley, millet, flax, oats, quinoa and other such healthy products.  The benefits of multigrain are as follows.

• They are high in macro-nutrients
• They possess dietary fibre.
• They are both low calorie and low fat.

While both whole grain and multigrain have different benefits to them the simple answer is that whole grain is the better and healthier alternative. Whole grain is always beneficial for you as the whole kernel is good for you and helps you in all of the ways mentioned above. By contrast, multi-grains benefits depend entirely on the grains chosen. With added ingredients multigrain might just lose the added benefits to the extra sugars and flavours. Which means that you can never really be completely certain of multigrain being beneficial.

While both these products can be beneficial, the most important question is how you can make these products a part of your diet to reap the benefits. The easiest way is to switch out potato chips for whole grain chips. Making this change can be as simple as going onto the DIP Foods website and ordering their baked whole grain and multigrain chips. Make the shift now so that you and your family can reap the benefits tomorrow.