Opportunities for diet quality improvement: the potential role of staple grain foods

Abstract

Objective: Given the high disease burden associated with the low intake of whole grains, modelling studies that estimate the impact of dietary strategies to increase more healthful grain foods consumption are essential to inform evidence-based and culturally-specific policies. This study investigated the potential nutritional impact of replacing staple grain foods with more healthful options. Design: Based on the 2015 Health Survey of São Paulo, a cross-sectional, population-based study, we modelled the substitution of white rice and white bread with brown rice and whole-wheat bread. Outcomes included changes in more healthful grain foods, energy, and nutrient intakes. Setting: Urban area of São Paulo, Brazil. Participants: Participants aged over 12 years who completed a semi-structured questionnaire and one 24-h recall (n=1741). Results: The substitution of all white rice and white bread with brown rice and whole-wheat bread, respectively, would result in more than 5% increases in zinc (+9.1%), calcium (+9.3%), vitamin E (+18.8%), dietary fibre (+27.0%), and magnesium (+52.9%) intake, while more than a 5% decrease would be seen for total carbohydrate (-6.1%), folate (-6.6%), available carbohydrate (-8.5%), iron (-8.6%), vitamin B6 (-12.5%), vitamin B2 (-17.4%), and vitamin B1 (-20.7%). A substantial increase in the amount of more healthful grain foods consumed would be seen (10g/d to 220g/d), or from 4% to 69% of total grain intake. Conclusions: Replacing white rice and white bread with their whole-grain versions has the potential to improve diet quality, suggesting they are prime targets for policy actions aiming at increasing intake of more healthful grain foods.

Exploring Diet and Nutrient Insufficiencies across Age Groups: Insights from a Population-Based Study of Brazilian Adults

“…Whole grains are more commonly consumed by women, which may explain the differences between the sexes in inadequacies of B vitamins [ 53 ]. In a recent investigation that simulated the effect of replacing refined cereals with whole grains, one of the adverse effects would be the reduction of niacin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, and folate, which could be associated with grain processing [ 54 ]. It may also be related to the differences in iron inadequacy between the sexes, which is notably higher in women (in all age groups) than in men.…”

Identification of a New Giant Emrbryo Allele, and Integrated Transcriptomics and Metabolomics Analysis of Giant Embryo Development in Rice

“…It not only provides the calories required for human productive labor, but also the nutrients necessary for human growth (Babu et al, 2009). With recent improvements in living standards, the demand for increased nutritional quality in rice grains has increased; thus, analyzing the breeding and molecular mechanisms of rice nutritional quality has become an important research area (Fontanelli et al, 2021). Rice grain consists chiefly of the endosperm, embryo, and seed coat, among which 70-80% of nutrients are enriched in the seed coat and particularly the embryo.…”