Best grains and breads for your child

Alan Greene, MD & Founder of DrGreene, shares advice for parents which grains and breads are the healthiest to feed your children
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Best grains and breads for your child

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Parents often ask me, "What are good grains for my children?" Well, let me start by saying what's not a good grain. And what's not a good grain is something that is made from a processed white flour. That starts turning to sugar while it's still in their mouth and it's 100% glucose by the time it's absorbed. There's no good reason for it, it causes insulin spikes but it's become the most popular thing among kids. Trying to reduce processed white flour is a great place to start. Anything made out of a whole grain is somewhat better. And so just switching, if you're having a pizza or having pasta to a whole grain pizza or pasta is better. But far better than that is choosing a grain that's in its real form. So choosing oats like oatmeal that's made from real oats, not oat flour. Choosing barley that you have as a barley cereal, it's real barley, it's not barley flour, is really good. Choosing corn, it's basically a grain but having it as corn not as corn flour or as high fructose corn syrup and having this corn on the plate is really good. And having rice, brown rice, whole grain brown rice on the plate is a great way to go. So grains themselves are better than grain products, and that's a huge step forward. When it comes to bread, choose a whole grain bread. And you have to look at the ingredient label because the names of the breads are often quite misleading, but whole grain should be in the first ingredient. And a sprouted grain bread can be very good as well. And it turns out, in the US, most kids have grown up not liking it, but the earlier you start, the easier it is for kids to form a real preference for whole grain breads. And once they do, they'll like them even better.

Alan Greene, MD & Founder of DrGreene, shares advice for parents which grains and breads are the healthiest to feed your children

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Alan Greene, MD

Founder, DrGreene.com

Dr. Alan Greene founded his website, DrGreene.com, in 1995, cited by the AMA as "the pioneer physician web site." In 2010 he founded the WhiteOut Now movement to change how babies are fed from their very first bite of solid food, and in 2012 he founded TICC TOCC – Transitioning Immediate Cord Clamping To Optimal Cord Clamping. He is an author of several books including Feeding Baby Green and appears frequently in the media including such venues as the The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TODAY Show, Good Morning America, the Dr. Oz Show, and is a regular columnist for Parenting magazine. He is a practicing pediatrician and the father of four.

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