According to a study released in 2009 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity in America has an annual price tag of $147 billion in healthcare costs. This should come as no surprise, since two thirds of adults and one third of children in the U.S. are considered obese or overweight. To combat this costly crisis, consumers and food producers are taking a long look at the health benefits of whole grains.
The momentum behind increasing whole-grain consumption has been building ever since the introduction of the USDA’s revised “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” in 2005. The new guidelines were a boon to whole-grain marketers; they spelled out for the first time that at least half of grain consumption should be from whole-grain sources.